Where there is no hope, even the smallest problems cannot be solved.

Hope is less about optimism over outcomes than about the sense that an action is worth taking. Without it a burnt-out bulb stays burnt out for six weeks, not because changing it is hard but because changing it seems pointless.

Which makes the small jobs a decent gauge, and a decent lever. Nobody can decide to feel hopeful. Most people can change a bulb.

Doing one apparently pointless small thing sometimes restarts the sense that the world responds to being touched.