Siddharth Kumar

If there is one truth I am certain of in all my years of living, it is that hope kills you inside. It rots you, shreds you into bits, deprives you of dignity, and ensures there is no end to the torment you are facing.

If there is another truth I have learned in all my years of living, it is that hope prevents you from dying. It brings you to the precipice of being over, but does not let you fall into the pits of burning hell. It is the last weak strand that holds you barely above the ninth circle of hell. You wish the strand would break so you could meet your destined fate.

But hope is the most cruel satan that exists. It kills you but does not want you to die yet. It wants you to live through your sins every second of your existence. It makes you wish for death so you can attain finality. But hope believes finality does not come from being over. It comes from suffering without dying, no matter how badly you have been killed. Being killed and dying are two different acts.

Hope is both benevolent and malevolent. It wants you to question yourself, marinate in self-doubt, and be whipped by guilt. Once you are broken enough, you can no longer feel anything, and you beg death for mercy. That is when hope starts pulling you through the last weak strand. It wants to test whether there is anything left in you. It wants to check your perseverance. It wants to see whether, after begging for death, you have anything left to be considered worthy of living.

Most of us give up at this stage. We want an end to pain so desperately that we let the malevolent hope win. We let go of the last strand to meet our fate. But hope merely wants to see if we deserve another chance. It asks whether we are willing to endure eight levels of hell while climbing out of the ninth, and come out alive.

At this point, we have no self-worth left and wish to become one with death. For some, despite all they have been through, they gather enough courage, even while feeling they are not worth living, and finally see the benevolent side of hope. It slowly pulls them up.

But we must remember that the strand is too weak to support us. We have to be careful. We have to be cautious and prepared to go through the eight levels of hell again on the upward journey, to endure the torture we thought was over.

Because there is sunshine outside the exit. A sunshine that awaits a different version of you than the one that was thrown into the pits of hell.