"Hope is a good breakfast,
but a bad supper."
(Francis Bacon)
Bacon meets fishermen in Chelsea and offers to buy their net, which hasn't been pulled in yet, for 10 shillings (they were asking for 30).
The fishermen refuse, hoping for a better catch.
The net comes up empty (or with three small fish, depending on the version), and Bacon remarks that hope serves well at the start (like breakfast), but makes a poor meal at the end of the day when you need concrete results.
Hope is useful at the beginning of an endeavor because it motivates action, sustains morale, and drives future projects.
However, when it replaces concrete achievement and lingers indefinitely as mere expectation, it becomes harmful and turns into ILLUSION.
Francis Bacon is a thinker associated with empiricism and the valuation of practical experience, frequently warning against illusions and empty expectations.
Empiricism: The philosophical method and theory of knowledge that defines experience as the source of truth.
Practical experience: The everyday application of this method ("doing," testing, and observing).
Given what has been laid out so far, we could wander into countless meditations.
I'll pick one at random...
Many people don't understand how the Stock Market works; this situation Bacon lived through is a great example.
Francis made a sort of bet that when the net was hauled in, it would yield more fish than what he had offered to pay the fishermen.
Every bet is an act of hope.
The fishermen preferred to risk the venture without a backer, sort of like not taking their company public on the Stock Market.
Notice that no one is taking advantage of anyone here.
"Experience never enables us to reach
absolute certainty.
We must not seek to obtain more
than probabilities."
(Bertrand Russell)
We don't know the future; much of the time, we are placing bets.
We win some, we lose others.
If we suffer repeated defeats (or results that fall way short of our expectations) and keep persisting in the exact same action... hope turns into illusion.
We also live by illusion; it fills our time.
"I" don't recommend it. I lean more toward "Francis Bacon", I need practical results.
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