What is hope?

Rachel Naomi Remens is a teacher I have loved for many many years. A childhood friend introduced me to her work through reprints of articles found in hard-copy magazines. Remember them? I found much wisdom and inspiration in her books, especially Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather's Blessing.

It had been a long time in between connection with her, but, when I could not sleep last night I found her in an interview recorded during the time of the Virus that has sat down beside us (my description). Rachel Naomi Remens quotes Vaclav Havel, whose name she admits she cannot pronounce. Reading from her stack of reprinted quotations she shared Czech statesman, writer and former dissident, who served as the last President of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of nd then as the first President of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. He was the first democratically elected president of either country after the end of communism. 

The quotation makes the difference between hope and optimism. The quote is late in the interview (1:13) for those of you who don't wish to listen to the entire video. In short, Vaclav Havel said:

“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”