As writers and readers, as sinners and citizens, our realism and

The words of Seamus Heaney—“As writers and readers, as sinners and citizens, our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of crediting the positive note.”—speak as if from the deep well of human experience. They are not the musings of a dreamer, but the sober recognition of a poet who has wrestled with both beauty and sorrow. In this line, Heaney acknowledges a tension at the heart of existence: that we are drawn to hope, yet hesitate to trust it. Our realism whispers that joy is fleeting, our sense of truth warns us not to be deceived, and so we hold ourselves back from embracing what is light and uplifting.

The origin of such wariness is found in the nature of humanity itself. As writers and readers, we are trained to see conflict, tension, and tragedy, for without them, stories often feel false. As sinners and citizens, we know firsthand the weight of failure, the corruption of power, and the fragility of good intentions. Thus, when the positive note arises—a glimmer of redemption, a word of hope—we question it. We wonder if it is naïve, if it glosses over the harshness we have known. Heaney, with his poet’s honesty, admits this suspicion, yet by naming it, invites us to examine it more deeply.

History offers us many examples of this suspicion of hope. Consider the years after the First World War, when a generation of young men returned scarred in body and spirit. The poets of that age—Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon—wrote not of triumph, but of mud, blood, and futility. They could not bring themselves to sing the “positive note,” for their realism told them the truth of war’s horror. Yet even in their bitterness, readers found a strange comfort, for the refusal to falsely glorify suffering became a form of integrity. Here, Heaney’s words find their echo: the honesty of darkness often feels more trustworthy than the brightness of hope.

And yet, we must not forget that Heaney himself, though wary, never abandoned the light. His poetry, born in the troubled soil of Northern Ireland, balanced grief with the search for meaning. In works like The Cure at Troy, he gave us lines of luminous hope: “Once in a lifetime / The longed-for tidal wave / Of justice can rise up.” He knew that the positive note, though fragile, has the power to inspire, to stir nations, to comfort souls. His warning, then, is not a dismissal of hope, but a recognition that hope must be earned through truth, lest it ring hollow.

What lesson, then, shall we draw from this? It is this: do not rush to the positive as a mask for pain, nor reject it entirely as a lie. Be both realist and dreamer, both critic and believer. Let your honesty face the darkness, but let your courage still reach for light. For the truest hope is not blind—it is hope that sees the wounds of the world and still chooses to heal.

In our daily lives, this means cultivating discernment. When good news comes, receive it with gratitude, but test it with wisdom. When hope arises in your heart, do not dismiss it as folly, but examine whether it grows from truth. And when despair tempts you to reject every positive note, remember that