David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Love’s closest counterfeit sounds like love but acts like selfish need

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Counterfeit love feels just like the real thing — at first.

As you start getting close to someone, you suddenly feel your heart swell in size. Your thoughts center on him or her. Everything the person does or says seems just right for you. You feel irrational exuberance and the feeling that you’ve finally found the love you’ve been waiting for.

Most of all, though, you bask in the golden glow of feeling that this wonderful person adores you.

And then something happens. His or her mask slips. You see things you hadn’t seen at first. The person’s words of love and devotion start to change. And the words you needed so much — ”Never forget that I want you!” — start to disappear. And then the memory of those promises feels hollow.

Maybe he didn’t really love you. Maybe she didn’t adore you and want a life with you. Maybe it was just counterfeit love — a selfish thing which crumbles into dust when it faces the light of reality.

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It’s best to focus on future, ’cause dead past is a ‘bridge to nowhere’

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I got an email a couple of months ago from someone I hadn’t heard from since high school. He and I were never close, but we knew one another from taking all the upper-level math and science classes together. He had been to a class reunion the night before and looked me up online to tell me about people asking about me — and even thinking he might be me.

I’ve never been to a reunion of any kind. Over the years, I’ve been tracked down by reunion committees who seem to assume that everybody is eager to know when a class is getting together, but I’ve never been tempted to go to a reunion. Not for high school. Not for college. Not for any workplace.

I’m not mad at anybody from the past. I simply don’t care. All of those people are strangers to me now. For years, I’ve puzzled over why I seem to feel so differently than most other people do about such things and I think I’ve finally figured it out. Most people seem to believe their best times were in the past — and they’re eager to relive some of that past — but I’m convinced my best and most interesting days lie ahead.

Unless someone from my past is going to be part of my future, that person has no place in my life, because the past is dead and buried.

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Most of nature follows instinct, but humans often ignore voice

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I’ve been watching this squirrel outside my bedroom window Sunday afternoon as he gathers food to prepare for the coming winter months.

He scurries around on the ground, looking for nuts worth collecting. Once he finds another prize, he rushes back to a tree and climbs to another larger tree nearby. He disappears into the thick branches and leaves — so I can’t see exactly where his hiding place is — but I can picture it filling up with nuts like the one you see here.

He’s cautious. When he hears a noise, he freezes until he’s sure the danger’s gone. Then he goes back to work.

Watching this squirrel gather food for the winter — something I’ve seen squirrels do ever since I was old enough to pay attention to them — leaves me thinking again about how every part of nature has instincts about what it ought to do and be. But how do they know what to do?

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