Opening Pandora's Jar (Again)

Finding Hope Between Doomscrolling and Pickles

I often describe myself, in first meetings, in “about the author” posts, in life, as a hopeless romantic. I then joke that I’m actually very hopeful, almost to a naïve degree. I never said it was a good joke but I would argue that this mindset has worked out pretty well for me. In love, in the project, just recently when I found some great pickles; continuing the search for good pickles is a real act of hope in the Netherlands, a country deeply avoidant of well-canned vegetables. 

However, lately, I feel like hope takes more effort. It seems like existing online or anywhere means increased polarization, censorship, historical hand gestures making very public reappearances, isolation of teens and dropping literacy rates and fraying social fabric and loneliness and and and and –

I breathe in, I breathe out, I re-delete TikTok and Instagram and AP News, I go into my kitchen, to the fridge, I open the jar and eat a pickle, they’re great, and I think about hope and jars and about Pandora. 

Pandora’s story begins with Zeus, who, seeking revenge on Prometheus for stealing fire and giving it to humanity, devised a plan. With the help of Hermes, Athena, and our favorite girl Aphrodite, he created Pandora, the first woman. She was gifted to Prometheus' brother, despite a warning from Prometheus to avoid any gifts from the gods. Unswayed by the caution, his brother accepted Pandora, captivated by her beauty and presence.

Pandora, driven by curiosity, a deeply human trait, eventually opened a jar (often misinterpreted as a box) that Zeus had given her. From it poured all the world’s troubles: fear, despair, illness, strife. Horrified by what she had unleashed, she managed to close the jar just in time to trap one final thing inside: hope.

What does it mean for hope to still be in the jar? 

Standing in my kitchen, I think the presence of the hope in the jar represents a choice. In the myth, hope is not ever present in the world, the way suffering, strife, struggles are but is instead safeguarded in a pottery jar. It is up to us to open the jar and fish out hope when we can. If the jar feels out of reach for some, it’s up to others to hold it out, to share what they’ve found.

As mentioned before, it seems like the troubles Pandora released are hard at work and ever present; disinformation, rolled back moderation, the climate crisis, echo chambers that heighten the ‘Us vs. Them’ sentiments are all well in place and often, like with TikTok and Instagram and Twitter, deeply ingrained in our everyday routine. 

But hope is still in the jar. 

Today, taking hope out of the jar means texting friends asking how they are. It’s sharing resources. It’s logging off. In crying about it and making lists and going on walks with friends and family and lovers, unplugged. 

It means logging back on and in discourse that involves sensitivity and genuinely trying to find a middle ground or understanding rather than likes and shares and meme comments complimenting how you owned them and how your “opponent” is an NPC (more on that next week). 

Hope is still in the jar and it’s up to us to embrace Pandora’s curiosity, autonomy, and humanity, and let it out.

I think for me, right now, hope is eating pickles with my love in the evening, sharing about our day while our dogs lobby for a place on the couch next to us. The news, the doomscrolling, the echo chambers drone in our phones but the crunch of the pickles is louder.  

If hope is human then human we must be.