What if I’ve fooled myself — and darkness is all that waits for me?

By David McElroy · October 18, 2019

A dark cloud has followed me all day.

But it’s worse than that. It’s more like a dark monster — spewing its foul hot breath down my neck — just waiting for its chance to devour me.

I’ve come to a restaurant where I haven’t been for a long time. I didn’t really want to deal with anyone I know, but I felt too restless to go home. I’m sitting next to a huge window with a view of a beautiful sunset on the horizon, but I don’t even feel like walking outside to take a photo.

The glorious red sky doesn’t match the blackness I feel inside.

It’s not depression that I feel. This sort of darkness is different. It’s more like hopelessness. It’s the feeling that I’ve been running a race — pushing toward the prize I needed with all my heart — and then finding that I’ve been running in a big circle. It’s the feeling that my time has been wasted. That I’ll never have what I’ve been chasing.

When I woke up this morning, I remembered a dream — a vivid night drama that had awakened me in the wee hours and made me feel terribly alone.

It wasn’t a long dream, but it hit me hard.

I was taking some art photos for a project. I don’t recall the details, but I liked the work I was doing. I knew that most people wouldn’t understand whatever it was. That was fine with me. I just wanted her to like it — to approve of my work and to understand it.

I had made large prints and mounted them for her to see. I proudly showed her what I had done, but she didn’t seem very interested. She said she didn’t think anybody would want to buy them. She said they were “OK.” She didn’t think they would make me popular. She was clearly disappointed in me.

I woke up right after the dream and it felt real. I felt as though my heart had been crushed. Not only had she not liked the work, but she made it clear that she wouldn’t think I was doing good work unless other people liked it and wanted to buy it.

She didn’t understand the work, but even worse, she didn’t care about it. She only cared whether other people would like it and buy it — whether it would make me popular.

I felt as though I had done it for her — for her approval. I had thought she understood what I was doing and would be proud of me. But she wasn’t proud. She didn’t care.

She didn’t understand me. She didn’t have faith in my work. She didn’t believe in me.

And that’s what made me feel so terribly alone as I laid there in the dark semi-consciousness of 4:30 a.m. She didn’t believe in me.

It just so happens that it was five years ago yesterday that I wrote something which I see as foundational to much of what I’ve been writing since then. In an article called, “We have a hunger for love just as strong as the need for food, water,” I wrote about what I see as the driving force in me.

I was in a hopeful place at the time, so I ended that by talking about the need to “never lose faith that love can save your life and give you new purpose when you least expect it.”

That hope and faith drove me — and drove much of what I’ve written since — but I’m losing the faith that I was so eager to talk about at the time. The evangelist for the gospel of love is slowly becoming a love agnostic.

Every word that I wrote five years ago is still true. We do have a hunger for love. It is just as strong as the need for food and water. We die inside without the love we need.

But if you’ve been chasing love for years — and you discover that you’re running in circles — maybe there’s nothing waiting for me at the end of this race. Maybe the darkness is all there is.

Maybe she will never be there. Maybe being alone is all I’ve earned. Maybe she doesn’t believe in me. Maybe nobody who I want will ever understand and have the faith to take a chance on me.

And if this is all there is, what’s the point in my work? What’s the point of the meaning that I want to create?

What’s the point if there’s no one to create meaning for?

And in the wake of those horrible questions from the dream, I fear that my hope and faith are gone. And that’s why my dark companion has been following closely today, eager to point her accusing finger and tell me that nobody loves me or believes in me.

I don’t want to believe that dark monster’s whispers, but I have nothing to say that might show her she might be wrong.

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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.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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