The Sudden Appearance of Hope

by Claire North

The world began to forget me when I was sixteen years old.

Friends, five who were the heart of my life, who I always sat with, and who one day sat at another table, not dramatically, not with “fuck you” flair, but because they looked straight through me and saw a stranger. A disassociation

Jihad: to struggle. To strive in the way of God.

I’ve always liked knowledge. It makes me feel like I’m real, part of something after all.

“You’re so pretty already, with just a bit of work you could be perfect too!”

“I used to think that it was okay just to be liked for being me.”

Too many voices all at once on the internet, screaming, just all the time screaming, sometimes it’s hard to be heard. Sometimes I think that the world is full of screaming.”

Knowledge is power. Knowledge is freedom. Knowledge is all I have. There is nothing in this world which can master me, save me myself.

First impressions matter, when they are all you have to live by.

them. The coast of Oman had been dug and sown with hardy dark green trees and thin, drooping beige fields, but the dust crept across every porch of every nowhere town that hugged the road.

Alone, you can lose yourself, or you may find yourself, and most of the time you do both.

History is full of “celebrities” – those who are celebrated for an act – but in the last century, we celebrated consumption.

Perfection is an aspiration carved from socio-economic values, not ethical ones.

Perfection is wealth, fashion, interest and power. It is glowing skin, pleasant laugh, easy conversation. It

is … a thing that the world aspires to, and it is of course very dull...

“It’s easier to be perfect if you’re from a certain socio-economic background. Perfection takes time, effort, and

if you’re poor, if you’re struggling then

“‘Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not a truth.’”

“Perfect people aren’t knowledgeable, they aren’t … wise. That’s what my brother says. Knowledge is for show-offs and people who don’t get out of the house enough, we’ve got Google, Wikipedia.

Look for the words “perfect woman” and you find bodies.

Who is the perfect woman? According to the internet, she is a blonde white girl with bulimia; no other characteristics are specified.

And the perfect man? He has a wide range of interests, is polite and courteous at all times, handsome and sexually considerate, intelligent, preferably funny, has a high income and his own home, mortgage free.

Perfection was not for the poor.

You cannot be sad and be perfect.

Ideas of success reinforced by persistent ideation. I will be successful. I am successful. I can achieve success. I am happy. I am happy. I am happy. We stick electrodes in the human brain and repeat this idea until it is true.”

“I designed treatments to make people better. I thought I could use it to make me brave. But people don’t want to be brave, Rafe said. People want to be perfect.

Perfect: to be superficial to your very core.

It was not me he lusted after, I decided, but rather he was aroused by himself. Seducing me gave him an outlet to express his brilliance.

Exclusive: to exclude. Limiting possession or control to a single group.

All those lives destroyed, the suffocation of debate, the raising up of noise over content, the simplification, objectification, the brutal destruction of thought that he committed against all mankind.

Tell me, in a world where wealth is power, and power is the only freedom, what would desperate men not do to be heard?”

The internet gave us all the power of speech, and what did we discover? That victory goes to he who shouts the loudest, and that reason does not sell.

Perfection is an idol built upon oppression. Perfection is the heaven that kept the masses suppressed; the promise of a future life that quells rebellion. Perfection is the self-hatred an overweight woman feels when she sees a slim model on TV; perfection is the resentment the well-paid man experiences when he beholds a miserable millionaire. Perfection kills. Perfection destroys the soul.”

“Are our lives devoid of merit? Are we not generous to our friends, kind to strangers, skilled in our areas of expertise, reliable with rent, gentle with children, quick to phone an ambulance when we see a man hit by a car, thoughtful in word and deed? Do we not have worth enough? Are we not already perfect? Perfectly ourselves? Perfect in being who we are?”

You have the words of friends and strangers. You have discourse and reason. You have critical thought, which may be trained to the highest degree. In short, you do not need the world to tell you what to be. Especially if the world tells you that you are never good enough.”

It is not death a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.

There is nothing human ingenuity cannot make which human ingenuity cannot break.

Self-doubt, insecurity, neediness, emotional fragility – these are not traits of perfect people.

Perfect people always have a solution to a problem, you see. But what do you do when words fail? Truth: sometimes a murderer cannot be found. Truth: sometimes your children are taken and you are left behind. Truth: poverty is a prison. Truth: disease and age come to us all. These are so terrifying, we program them out of the human brain. Treatments make everyone who has them happy, and happiness is always sexy, isn’t

Gondoliers have survived plague and fire, conquest and decay; they’ll survive tourism too.

Do I care that Google knows my religion, if I’m divorced or pregnant, that Facebook uses my face in an ad campaign?

Do I care that the only way to be free from the fear of surveillance is to be absolutely harmless? To conform to a sociological norm, and never say anything that is personal, or real, or half thought through, or challenging?

Running. A bad sport, really. Terrible on the knees – they say running is free, the cheapest sport there is, but good shoes cost a lot these days