Nick Cave has dominated my life for the past month.
Cave has been releasing music since the mid-1980s with his band, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and is also an author, screenwriter and poet – an intriguing figure in every sense of the word.
His band’s most famous song, “Red right hand” is the theme song for the show. Peaky Blinders, This is a film I watched this summer.
Then last week, Nick Cave came back into my life and I couldn’t stop thinking about his words.
During a recent interview with Stephen Colbert, Cave spoke about the letters he’s received from fans struggling to find hope as a young father.
“The last few years have left me feeling a sense of emptiness and more cynical than ever before… Will you still believe in us? [human beings]?”
Struggling to stay motivated towards a project or goal? To become a “receiver of memories” of the pain of the worldI know what it feels like to become cynical at times and lose hope!
I’m sure you feel the same way.
So I was impressed. Nick’s replyI guarantee it’s worth a look.
Being the nice guy that I am, I’ll post Cave’s response here.
“I spent my youth with contempt for the world and its people, an attitude that was both seductive and indulgent.
The truth is, I was young and had no idea what was going to happen.
It took this tragedy for me to understand the preciousness of life and the essential goodness of human beings…
… It took a devastating situation to find hope.”
I paused the video and learned that Cave’s 15-year-old son died in an accidental fall in 2015.
Armed with this knowledge, I continued watching the video and was moved to tears.
“Unlike cynicism, hope is hard-won, it makes demands on us, and it often feels like the most indefensible and lonely place on earth.”
Hope is not a neutral position.
It’s hostile.
It is the emotion of the warrior that can defeat cynicism.”
Hope and acceptance
I Written about acceptance I’ve been talking about this skill at some length in this newsletter because it’s the skill I’ve had to work hardest to develop for myself over the past few years.
I now understand that as we navigate life, combining acceptance with hope is the most powerful path forward.
It’s not enough to just passively hope that “things will work out.” Might be It doesn’t work, or at least not in the way we expected.
Rather, it’s about actively cultivating hope that you can endure whatever comes your way.
in Past Newsletters on HopeI took this quote from “Real Self-Care” by Dr. Lakshmin.
“Hope needs to be something you do, not something you feel.”
Hope can be practiced by identifying a deep desire, value, or commitment and then taking steps toward it.
…Optimism is the feeling that everything will be okay, but hopeful people understand that even though things may not go well, they have the power to make things just a little better for themselves and others.”
Hope is a warrior emotion that breaks down the resistance in our minds.
Hope helps us realize, “Even if life is a dumpster fire, I have the ability to endure and survive whatever chaos is thrown my way.”
I’ll leave you with this for today.
No matter what goal you are working towards, what struggle you are stuck in, where you are in the game of life…
I hope this newsletter reminds you that you have a choice.
I hope this newsletter reminds you that the progress you make today, even if it’s small, can be powerful.
At the end of the video above, Nick concludes:
“Even the smallest acts of salvation and love — reading to your little boy, showing him what he likes, singing to him, putting on his shoes — can keep the devil in his hole.
It teaches that the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth protecting.
It says that the world is worth believing in.
In time, we realize that this is true.”
-Steve
