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Nick Cave’s response to a man who has lost faith in humanity is the most gorgeous think you’ll hear today

Poke Reporter. Updated August 16th, 2024

Fans of Nick Cave don’t need to be told that he’s a man who can express the deepest and most complicated of emotions through his music.

However, as Nick himself has acknowledged, nothing could have prepared him for the the kind of pain that most of us could barely allow ourselves to imagine – the grief that followed the tragic deaths of his two sons in 2015 and 2022.

A few years ago, Nick responded on his website, the Red Hand Files, to a question from a fan named Valerio, who had lost his faith in human beings and was worried about passing those feelings onto his child.

This week, Nick shared his response again while appearing as a guest to promote his new album on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

The letter is from someone named Valerio, from Stockholm, who wrote:

“Following the last few years, I’m feeling empty and more cynical than ever. I’m losing faith in other people, and I’m scared to pass these feelings onto my little son. Do you still believe in us human beings?”

And this is Cave’s reply:

“Dear Valerio,
Much of my early life was spent holding the world and the people in it in contempt. It was a position both seductive and indulgent. The truth is, I was young and had no idea what was coming down the line. It took a devastation to teach me the preciousness of life and the essential goodness of people. It took a devastation to reveal the precariousness of the world, of its very soul, and to understand that the world was crying out for help. It took a devastation to understand the idea of mortal value, and it took a devastation to find hope.

“Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard-earned, makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism. Each redemptive or loving act, as small as you like – such as reading to your little boy or showing him a thing you love or singing him a song or putting on his shoes – keeps the Devil down in the hole. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that this is so.
Love, Nick.”

The clip has gone viral and elicited emotional responses from people.
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You can watch Nick’s whole appearance on the show here.

Source: Twitter/X/MrDavidRowe