The curse called hope

[B_M_W]

Indeed.

That's the way it was fopr me when I was shooting trap/skeet.

Too bad Im terrible at it. Theres a lot of not getting sad for me.  

[putz]

Daryls story seems pretty clear to me as a tragic case, but what would you rather have had him do? He had hope he would be saved somehow, his alternative to a long, lingering death was a quick one, but on the other hand, there was always the chance (slim as it may have been) that he would have been saved. Without that hope, he would have died sooner, and if that chance -had- come along, that's one more death that could have been prevented.

In Norse mythology, those who die fighting a hopeless battle go to Vahalla.

As for slavery, I wouldn't say its the hope of escape, but the hope of freedom that kept them going. If they hadn't had that hope, they would all have been killed, and look at where that would leave us today. And if you really think slavery is abandoned today, you are wrong, that's all I'm going to say on that. But those people have -hope- that they will be freed, and particularly in the sex slave trade in the western world, that hope has kept many women alive, and yes, lots are freed.

I think you misunderstood my point on slavery.  I wasn't saying that slavery had been abandoned, I was saying that it would be abandoned if slaves no longer had hope.  It would be ecenomically unviable, what with the high rates of suicide and murder/suicide that would occur in the slave population.

Hope is what keeps humans going in the direst of situations, hope is the glimmer of spirit that keeps people struggling on despite the most dire circumstances. Hope is what makes those mountaineers who chew through their own arm to get away, or those citizens who rise up against the evil empire, or whatever, act.

A wise tactician knows to always leave an avenue of escape for his enemies, for a soldier with no hope of survival is a much more dangerous foe.