Without things to look forward to, the human heart gets ready to die

By David McElroy · April 18, 2019

When I was a child, one of the highlights of my year was getting the Sears Christmas Wish Book. For about six weeks before Christmas, my sisters and I would go through that catalog over and over again, choosing exactly what we wanted and marking our top choices.

I remember wanting walkie-talkies and chemistry sets and electronics kits, among other things. There were always things I hoped for. Some years, I even got what I wanted.

Did I enjoy the gifts I got? Very much. I have fond memories of playing with other kids in the neighborhood with my walkie-talkies. I fascinated myself for many hours as I learned about electronics. And I joyfully mixed up disgusting things with my chemistry set. (I tried to dye the hair of one of my sister’s dolls, but I somehow turned the plastic hair green. Ooops.)

As much as I enjoyed playing with the things I got for Christmas, though, the gifts never matched the excitement and anticipation of looking forward to Christmas. Eventually, I came to understand that having something to look forward to is even more important than the things I have at the moment.

I have this on my mind today because I keep thinking about some of the things I read in my father’s journals from the last couple of years of his life. (I mentioned some of this in my discussion Wednesday of the anniversary of his death.)

“Very down and depressed most of the time now,” he wrote on Oct. 26, 2017. “Think often of death and possibility of taking my life. I have nothing to live for or look forward to.”

He lived in a very nice home in an upscale suburban neighborhood. (He rented from a couple who lived in the rest of the house and they became his friends.) He didn’t lack for the material things he needed to live out his days. But he had nothing to look forward to, so he wanted to die.

There are a lot of things which I don’t have that I want in my life right now. I don’t live in the sort of neighborhood I want. I don’t have the sort of house I want. I don’t have the wife and family I want. I don’t have the income I want. I don’t have the achievements I want.

But I have something that might be more important than all of that. I have hope and faith. I believe I’m going to have all the things I want — and I eagerly look forward to having each and every item on my list. And more.

A psychologist once told me that resilience was the only thing that had saved me from the burden of the emotional trauma which I had experienced early in life.

“I’ve never known anyone who was more resilient than you are,” she said. “You always find a way to take every setback and traumatic event and reinterpret it so it will mean you have a future to look forward to.”

I hadn’t thought about it before. I just assumed everyone did that.

I’ve had some serious disappointments over the years. As I dug deeper into my emotional health, I found all sorts of damage to overcome. As I worked on those issues, I sometimes found myself headed down roads which I wouldn’t have planned to take.

Objectively, I should feel despair about some of the things I’ve gone through, but I don’t. Why? Just because I honestly expect to have the things I want before long. I expect to find love with the right woman. I expect to have a family of some kind with her. I expect to achieve a series of financial and creative goals that I have in mind.

As I look at my father’s depressed journal notes, I realize that he created a life he hated — and he didn’t think he had anything to look forward to. That lack of hope depressed him and it eventually killed him.

His death certificate didn’t say he killed himself, but the choices he made meant slow suicide.

I want more in life than I have right now, but I never want to get to the point that I have everything I could possibly want. If I ever do, I fear that I might start dying quickly, too.

Fortunately, I have a lot left to accomplish. I have a long way to go. I have many years of love and achievements to look forward to.

Despair can bring death to a physically healthy person — but hope can bring life.

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Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

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