setting the ground rules on what hope is and what hope is not. Hope is not a wish. In wishing, you would be indiferent in the results of your wishing. Marcel gives an example of a love one returning home from work. Hoping he would arrive early. Even if he does not arrive early, you would indiferent about it. s long as he arrives. Hope is also not optimism as being an optimist only makes someone into a commentator. He would comment based on experience or religious values. !hey feel that you must listen to them as they have the keen sight. keen sight better than yours. !hese are examples of diluted hope. He does though gives us a framework and some characteristics of uthentic Hope. uthentic hope is always situated within a trial or a period of darkness. It is being deeply involved with the situation. "omething that has bearing to you. uthentic hope is the refusal to give in to despair. !hen he tackles what authentic hope is. He mentions a variety of points on what hope is. Hope as a positive non#acceptance. It is an act by which we are victorious over despair and actively overcome despair. Hope involves captivity. $here you are deeply involved in the situation and where there is no way out of it. %ike how a terminally ill patient believes he will be healthy again. Hope is creative. %ike how the thesis statement mentions &Hope is the patient seeking of the light, yet to be born, that cannot be seen nor experienced in moments of captivity, capitulation, and darkness.' $e see an image of a future that we want to have. (r as Marcel would say, it is a Memory of the future. $e welcome the possibility of something that may not even happen or will happen in time. t this moment we might be sufering or in despair but we have a positive non#acceptance of that sufering. "ince hoping involves sufering, it would also entail that while in hope we are also in constant challenge to also give up hoping because of despair. )espair closes all possibilities and traps the self in captive darkness. darkness where you then expect that you will always *ust be in that darkness. +ou succumb to the darkness and become ,xated. $hich is the exact opposite of hope. Hope helps one release his ,xation on the ob*ect of hope. -ust like love. +ou do not hold on to someone you love as that would be called obsession. +ou set them free. %ove is a key element in understanding authentic hope. Hope is an act of trusting each other, again, *ust like love. Hope helps one be open. I believe that real hope only comes in when we have been through darkness and captivity. $e can only hope something to happen in time which is unlike despair that closes the sense of time and think that there is no more chance of something to happen. !hings will happen in time. I think that Marcel was still not able to de,ne what hope really is. s the concept of hope is rather vague. Hope is a bit sub*ective to each one. Hope is our response. It is not automatic. It is an act of will. It is a choice. It is a response to captivity. .or Marcel, the more we are tempted to give in to despair, the more we are given the chance to respond in authentic hope. I believe that hope is the constant victory over despair. !o hope is a choice an act which you do or make in order to outlast despair. s when falling into despair you lose being communal, being creative, you will be held captive, and losing all hope which leads to closing all possibilities inside yourself. !he person who hopes does not exactly know how that will happen. He also knows that he himself cannot make it happen. He does not have the power to make the communion live. /evertheless, he hopes in the Holy, that somehow, in some way, the communion will be restored, will be renewed.