 Don't mistake the triumphant-sounding language that hope sometimes employs for certainty. Hope has doubts. Hope is not the result of a dispassionate analysis of the evidence. Hope is not a confident projection of a probable future. Hope is not optimism. Hope is defiance in the face of bleak circumstances. Hope is resistance to despair when despair seems like a much more reasonable choice. Hope is our protest against the inhumanity of the human species. Hope is most necessary precisely when it is most absurd.