The stress of hope

Anyone who lived through the sixties knows what it feels like to have hopes dashed. Assassinations, one after another after another after another, pretty much rid the popular arena of politicians whose rhetorical idealism lifted the hopes of citizens not used to having much. So it's stressful to see hope in the nation once again, in the rhetorical idealism of Barack Obama, because the experience of seeing idealism wiped out in the flash of a gun is still fresh even though the sixties are long behind us. It's not an experience of literal overkill that is easily forgotten. You can push it aside but then a figure like Obama comes along and the old ghosts seep back into your pores. And hope becomes a very stressful emotion.