Eleanor offers something subtler than simple optimism here—she's describing the fundamental irrelevance of complaint without action. A person cursing the dark isn't wrong about the darkness; they're just choosing an expenditure of energy that leaves them exactly where they started. When a teacher stays late to tutor one struggling student instead of lamenting the broken school system, or when a neighbor plants flowers in a neglected median instead of denouncing city planning, they've grasped what Eleanor knew: that the size of your contribution matters less than the fact of it. The real wisdom isn't that hope beats despair—it's that doing something, anything constructive, is the only conversation worth having with yourself.