Powerful emotions come and go, so it’s worth noting if one stays

By David McElroy · December 17, 2018

Some feelings are here today and gone tomorrow. For someone who feels as much as I do — and who can easily have great waves of emotion wash over me without warning — one of the most important lessons of life is not to get too attached to any fleeting emotion.

I can fall in love with a new idea and then get cold on it a few days later. I can hate something I’ve made and then decide two weeks later that it was actually quite good. I’ve learned not to get upset as those feelings come and go.

The only thing my mind seems to take too seriously to allow feelings to come and go is romantic love. I’ve certainly had a couple of mild infatuations which I tried to talk myself into being love, but I always really know the difference. The real proof is when my stubborn heart refuses to let go of love which isn’t convenient.

Let me tell you about a dream I had awhile back.

Wherever I was in the dream, it didn’t seem like a real place. It was more like a vast blackness with no end in any direction, and it was as though I was floating in this space. I was very aware of a painful tugging on my chest. I could feel that it was coming from what looked like a silver thread or cord that was physically attached to me near the center of my chest.

Something was pulling hard on the other end of this cord. Every pull yanked at me and seriously damaged me, so I was scared and in a lot of pain. I didn’t know what it was, but I just wanted to break the cord so it would quit hurting. It seemed quite small, so it seemed reasonable that I could just snap it easily, as you might a piece of sewing thread. But when I tried to break it, I found that it was made of something so strong that it didn’t even stretch or bend or show any effect from my efforts.

A voice from behind me said, “You can’t break that thread. It’s an unbreakable philotic cord. You will have to live with that connection in place.”

Since I know that a “philotic connection” is a fictional concept — from the science fiction novels of Orson Scott Card — I know that it had to be a metaphor, but in the dream it seemed very real. I wanted to turn and look at the place where the voice was coming from, but I knew that I wasn’t allowed to turn, because I would see God’s face if I did. I suddenly understood what the cord was.

It tied me to a woman. The voice which I identified as God was firm but kind and loving. He knew it hurt, but it wasn’t going to go away.

That sounds miserable. (It is miserable.) But I have to celebrate it anyway, as strange as that sounds.

Since I know feelings can come and go, it’s comforting that my heart is committed to some few things whether they’re convenient or not. Why do I celebrate this? Because it’s my way of knowing what’s real and what’s just passing fancy.

I don’t like hurting. I don’t like longing for love I can’t have. I don’t enjoy obsessing about what might have been. But at least I can be certain this love is real — and that’s something no one can take away from me.

I’ve never gotten over real love easily when I could no longer have it. The only thing that’s ever allowed me to get over love is finding a new love which is even greater. That’s hard to imagine now, but I have to believe there is someone out there who I can love even more — who can finally break this bond which I haven’t been able to kill on my own.

For tonight, though, I quietly celebrate something which I know is real and true and genuine. Romantic love in this world is often based on sexual attraction or social prestige or mere habit. None of those will last. None of those mean anything in the long run.

I know I have something — for now, at least — that’s as real as love can get. It might be painful. It might be inconvenient. It might leave me lonely. But it’s the kind of genuine love and connection with another heart which poets and painters and sculptors and movie characters all long for.

I can say I’ve genuinely loved with my whole heart — and I don’t think many people have experienced that. So I celebrate a warm and open and imperfect heart that’s full of love for an imperfect woman, even if it hurts for now.

Share on Social Networks

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

Related Posts