Sudden realization of hunger for taste of kindred soul is killing me

By David McElroy · November 14, 2018

I’ve been starving for a long time — and I fear this hunger might destroy me — but I have no idea where to find this peculiar thing which I crave tonight.

When you’ve been hungry for long enough, you eventually quit feeling hunger. If you don’t believe me, go on a fast or at least stop eating sugar. At first, you’re desperately hungry and you crave what you’re not getting. But after awhile, your body chemistry stabilizes and changes in some ways that aren’t worth getting into here. Then you quit feeling hunger. Even if you’re starving to death, your body might not feel hunger.

My hunger isn’t for food. This hunger won’t kill me physically. But I haven’t had this need met for so long that I had quit noticing the hunger. I’ve been operating as I am for so long that I’m numb — in ways that are intellectual, emotional and spiritual.

But something happened tonight that triggered the hunger. I was reminded of what it feels like to have this need filled — and the realization of the painful need was back like a forgotten forest fire raging out of control. And now it threatens to consume me.

I was listening to a CBC radio documentary about Ayn Rand on the way home from work. I’m not an objectivist and I have very mixed feelings about some of Rand’s ideas, but her work was very influential for me early in my life. Whatever else you could say about her — and I could write quite a bit about her, both positive and negative — she was someone who took ideas very seriously.

When I was a teen-ager, some of her ideas enchanted me. Her ideas about the relationship between economics and moral philosophy resonated with my intuitive beliefs. Although I rejected much of what she taught in the philosophy she called objectivism, she was the only writer I knew at the time who was standing up for the rights of the individual as a matter of simple morality.

As I listened to this documentary — especially the parts that dealt with Rand growing close to (and then falling in love with) a man who shared her ideas — I felt a hunger for that kind of intellectual and spiritual communion.

I felt as though a violent wildfire had suddenly slammed into me with massive force — and I was left gasping for breath as I suddenly recalled what it has felt like in the past to experience that with women in my life. It was such an emotional realization that I felt like crying — and my soul can’t quit craving this like a junkie who desperately needs a fix.

I introduced Rand’s novels to one former girlfriend. We talked about the books for hours and debated Rand’s ideas. She wasn’t just a passive student soaking in what I could teach her. She was brilliant and incisive, developing her own love and understanding for certain characters and themes.

The same girlfriend and I used to read books to each other and talk about them. Early in our relationship, I recorded an entire book and emailed sections to her because she was having trouble with her eyes at the time and couldn’t read easily. (She later told me that a friend who found out I did that told her, “This guy is worth keeping.”) In the later stages of our relationship, she recorded sections of Rand’s “The Fountainhead” for me. We had both read it multiple times and knew the material well, but her reading to me like this was her way of feeling close to me.

My point here isn’t about that particular woman, though. I’ve experienced this meeting of minds and souls with other women through books and ideas. There was another woman with whom I used to read books. We would alternate who read aloud and we would stop and discuss passages, either for understanding or for quibbling with the author. We read things ranging from Machiavelli’s “The Prince” to Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.”

I’m not saying I’m hungry to join a book club. That’s not the point.

I’m hungry for the intellectual and emotional intimacy that comes from encountering the soul of a brilliant and curious woman. I’m hungry for the communion and intellectual intercourse that come from sharing ideas and becoming excited about shared growth.

I haven’t had this sort of mind and soul communion for a long time. I realized tonight just how desperate I am to have it again. I don’t mean I have a particular script it has to follow. I just mean with the right woman — a woman with a mind that’s curious and compatible with mine — this meeting of minds is just as exciting as sex.

This sort of need is difficult to describe. I don’t know how many people understand it in exactly the way it works for me. For me, it’s something powerful which exists at the intersection of intelligence, curiosity, ambition, attraction and sex. It’s a high which not everyone has experienced.

Since I know what it feels like — and since that hunger was reawakened tonight by being reminded of what it feels like — my mind and heart are desperate for it right now. I need to taste the soul of the right woman who can experience the same thing.

I’m desperately hungry for something I had forgotten I need. And the pain of not having it is too intense to bear. That pain is the reason I eventually get numb just to survive. I understand that.

But my heart and mind long for a kindred soul to touch deeply again before I lose the intensity of this pain. I’m desperately hungry, but all the food in the world can’t fill this hole. Only a kindred soul will do.

Share on Social Networks

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

Related Posts