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I don’t remember the subject of our disagreement, but I remember the sneer on his face.

“You just think you’re smarter than me!” he bellowed with disdain.

I’ve had this conversation with others through the years and it always follows the same script. An idiot says something stupid to me and I point out the flaw in what he says. He responds — with a non sequitur or some made up “fact,” usually — and I point out his error.

That’s when he pulls out his trump card. Instead of making a rational argument for whatever he believes, he accuses me of thinking I’m better than he is — because I’ve committed the grave mistake of being smarter than he is.

I’ve never actually said this to someone under such circumstances, but I always want to reply, “Well, yes, I am smarter than you are, you ignorant moron.”

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I’ve never made a conscious decision to love anyone. Somehow, my heart has always known — in ways beyond my rational understanding — who it wanted to love.

I just know that on the few occasions when real love has happened for me, I experienced two things at once. I needed to express boundless, unconditional love for that person — and I craved that person’s love and adoration more than I needed air and water.

We talk about love a lot in our culture — both in traditional folk culture and in modern pop culture — but I’ve never found anyone who can give me a satisfying definition. I’m not just talking about the various kinds of love — romantic, family, friendship, spiritual. I mean something far more basic. Is love an emotion? Or does it have a more powerful “life force” of its own?

I read a few days ago that new brain studies show love and hate are very similar in the ways they affect the mind, which might explain why it’s so easy to go from loving a person to hating the person.

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When I was a little boy, my mother told me a story about what happened when she almost died as a child — and that story has remained vivid in my memory.

I don’t recall what illness she had or exactly how old she was, but she was in a hospital and was near death. Doctors and her family were gathered around her in that hospital room, where she was covered with an oxygen tent.

As she lay there dying, Mother experienced something that might be called a dream. It might be called an out-of-body experience. Maybe it was a near-death experience. Whatever it was, she remembered it clearly and told the story with conviction.

She was riding in a small boat across a river. Ahead of her, Jesus was waiting for her on the riverbank. He was dressed in a sailor suit. As her boat approached the bank, she reached out to take his hand. She said that even in her child mind, she knew that when she took his hand, she would be dead to this world.

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