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Transcript
Here's what I want. I want all of us to get our
Leela Sinha:hopes up. I want us to get our hopes up so high and clear. I
Leela Sinha:want us to get our hopes up to the place where we can barely
Leela Sinha:reach them with our fingertips. I want to get our hopes up. I
Leela Sinha:personally want to get our hopes up starting with mine. I'm tired
Leela Sinha:of keeping my expectations low. I'm tired of hoping that I
Leela Sinha:didn't hope for too much. I'm tired of trying to avoid the
Leela Sinha:plane crash before it takes off. I'm tired of staying on the
Leela Sinha:ground. I'm tired. I'm tired of all of this. And I want us to
Leela Sinha:get our hopes up so high. So high, we float above the trees
Leela Sinha:and the mountain tops so that we can see how everything how
Leela Sinha:everything how everything is connected. Like in the Sword in
Leela Sinha:the Stone when he goes flying. And there are no borders from up
Leela Sinha:there. It's not entirely true that there are no borders. When
Leela Sinha:I was 19 and I flew to France to study abroad, I looked down from
Leela Sinha:the plane window as we took off from New York. And I saw my
Leela Sinha:familiar landscape, the woods of New England, but they were
Leela Sinha:criss-crossed with something I had never noticed before. In all
Leela Sinha:of the flying I had done, I had never seen New England quite
Leela Sinha:like this before. It was criss-crossed with these little
Leela Sinha:black lines, these little black lines everywhere, everywhere
Leela Sinha:coming and going. Irregular, unpredictable, broken. And I
Leela Sinha:realized after a while, those lines, those lines are the stone
Leela Sinha:walls, those the stone walls that I took for granted until I
Leela Sinha:moved out of New England and discovered that not every place
Leela Sinha:is made 50% rocks and 50% dirt. But as it turns out, those rock
Leela Sinha:walls tell us the story of a piece of the history of that
Leela Sinha:land. Just a piece. But those borders are ones that are easily
Leela Sinha:crossed. And when you meet with your neighbor to walk the stone
Leela Sinha:wall and put the stones back in place, it's not to keep you
Leela Sinha:apart. Boundaries are not the worst thing in the world as it
Leela Sinha:turns out. And getting our hopes up is a kind of open-ness to
Leela Sinha:boundaried-ness that will allow us to move forward. Having your
Leela Sinha:hopes up is sometimes about believing in people's abilities
Leela Sinha:to do better, to do good, to meet the world where it needs to
Leela Sinha:be met. And that's what these walls are. That's what these
Leela Sinha:boundaries are. That's what these hopes are: these hopes
Leela Sinha:that you will not encounter too much terribleness in front of
Leela Sinha:you when you walk out the front door with your coffee. That
Leela Sinha:there will be enough space for you to believe in the goodness
Leela Sinha:of the world just one more day just once more, perhaps? Maybe
Leela Sinha:twice. Let's find out. Let's keep walking. Let's keep moving.
Leela Sinha:Let's keep opening doors. Let's keep rolling forward. Let's keep
Leela Sinha:going and keep going and keep going. Let's not have to stop
Leela Sinha:because the barriers are too high. Let's make sure that those
Leela Sinha:stairs also have a ramp. Let's make sure that everybody can get
Leela Sinha:through that door. I had an experience recently where
Leela Sinha:someone I love was supposed to have something they wanted very
Leela Sinha:much. And at the last minute, it didn't happen. It's still gonna
Leela Sinha:happen. But it's going to be a minute or two or six months
Leela Sinha:worth of minutes. And while they wait, they have to manage the
Leela Sinha:possibility that they wanted it too much, which is not really a
Leela Sinha:possibility. But we learn over time when we don't get and don't
Leela Sinha:get and don't get and our needs get sidestepped and moved aside
Leela Sinha:and pressed down and squashed and rolled over, that maybe our
Leela Sinha:needs don't matter; that maybe hoping for something, wanting it
Leela Sinha:deeply is the wrong way to go.
Leela Sinha:And there is a funny thing that happens. If you're desperate for
Leela Sinha:something, it's very tricky to find your way out of that
Leela Sinha:desperation. And almost always it is when you find your way out
Leela Sinha:of that desperation that you are then able to get the thing that
Leela Sinha:you needed or wanted. Even if it feels like it's outside of your
Leela Sinha:control. It's this weird... I don't know. I don't have words
Leela Sinha:for it. But I do know that I'm trying to simultaneously hold
Leela Sinha:the possibility of hope, and walk and move and roll and fly
Leela Sinha:and dream toward hope. But not just hope, because hope is, is
Leela Sinha:empty satisfaction; also toward action. Also, toward action.
Leela Sinha:Toward believing. Believing, not only in the possibility of
Leela Sinha:action, but the reality of action. Believing that even if
Leela Sinha:it doesn't come today it might come tomorrow. Believing that
Leela Sinha:these words, these ideas, this podcast, this place, will reach
Leela Sinha:out into the world and somehow tip over some domino, hit some
Leela Sinha:butterfly's wing, make some breeze somewhere that will
Leela Sinha:circle back and transform something. Something.
Leela Sinha:Something's gotta change, and we are the ones who have to change
Leela Sinha:it. And that can feel so overwhelming until we remember
Leela Sinha:that change starts at home, change starts right here, in my
Leela Sinha:two hands, in my throat, in my mouth, on my tongue, in my
Leela Sinha:dreams. Where I get my hopes up by imagining what else could be.