FALL 2026: Hope is a State of Mind

“Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it’s a dimension of the soul; it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. […] In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from ‘elsewhere’. It is also this hope, above all, that gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.”

Václav Havel’s thoughts on hope, formulated in the 1986 book interview Disturbing the Peace, have not lost any of their relevance. Is hope a state of mind, not of the world? What gives us hope in today’s seemingly hopeless times? And how is HOPE related to RESILIENCE – a skill discussed so much these days? These are questions for FALL 2026 and its guests…