To any intelligent being, there is no emotion more important than hope. Individually or collectively, we must hope that the future will be better than the past, that our offspring, and theirs after them, will be a bit closer to an ideal society, whatever our perception of that might be. Hope is key. The future will be better than the past, or the present. Without this belief, there is only the self-indulgent, ultimately empty striving of the present.