Walking The Dog

Hope : from Old English hopa:  definition - verb, to express a desire for something; noun, the feeling of desiring something that's not entirely beyond your reach. So ... I hope to see you tomorrow (verb) vs. It is my hope that none of us will be pinged before our holiday (noun). Hope is an essential part of our lives. Without hope, what are we? Who are we? And where are we going?If hope were completely withdrawn from our lives, most of us would be utterly lost. I know I would be. Hope, after all, is the thing ... the essence, if you like ... that drives us. It is the catalyst of ambition and the enabler of dreams. Pliny the Elder said, "Hope is the pillar that holds up the world."  I like that image ... a solid pillar holding up the world ... for us. It is somehow reassuring. But Pliny didn't say solid. The hopeful part of me added that, making it a hopefully solid pillar.  What if the pillar were to get a bit blurred? What if it bowed perhaps and buckled? Is the