Nick Cave tries to give courage for 2025.
Nick Cave offers some advice to his fans feeling “anxious and depressed” during the New Year: to hold on to hope.
What’s coming?
In 2018, the Australian started with the “The Red Hand Files” – originally a way for him to exchange ideas with his fans and answer questions. Now, as Cave himself says, the website has become much more of a general forum that doesn’t shy away from vulnerability, transparency and deeper personal reflection. His last entry on the website addresses the following question: “The year 2025 is upon us. The world seems to be in such a catastrophic state. Where is the hope? What is hope?”
According to the 67-year-old, it’s completely normal to be more pessimistic about the world around the turn of the year. He blames the uncertain feeling on those who constantly tell people what a terrible time they are in. Specifically, Cave says in his answer: “Many feel powerless in the face of this terrible immediacy.” And: “Words like ‘Happy New Year’ sound hollow, like a remnant from a bygone, better time. We become what we consume, living embodiments of a predicted catastrophe.”
While Cave’s opening text sounds rather hopeless up to that point, he then goes on to explain what he thinks hope would actually mean. According to him, hope is an emotional state that not only encourages the heart to become active again, but also, through its power, empowers people to perceive innovative ideas and actions. Hope is the prerequisite for human life.
What allows action now
“We achieve this vitality of spirit by rejecting the relentless promotion of despair and opening our eyes to the beauty of things, however endangered, degraded or difficult to love the world may be,” says Nick Cave. He continues: “We try to see the world not as it is packaged, presented and sold to us, but as we imagine it could be. We don’t look away from the world, we look directly at it and allow the spirit of hope – the necessary force of change – to inspire us to act.”
Hopeful grandson
In the lower part of his answer, Cave makes it clear that he too struggled with the frightening feelings before the New Year, but these were transformed into hope by the sight of his little grandson: “I watched him being fed in his high chair by his loving parents became – this bright, new child – and the question seemed to merge with the vision of this little boy, his face covered in avocado, a radiant confirmation of that little word – hope. That Christmas Day I saw the life force of hope in action.”