Being in love shows us who we can choose to be at our very best

By David McElroy · July 2, 2021

I’ve discovered my “ideal girl” about half a dozen times so far — and each experience has changed me.

In the second grade, there was Lisa Lane. By the fifth grade, Wendy Ford was the new standard. In the eighth grade, I met Gail James. Nothing immediately came of that, but by the time we were freshmen in college, we finally dated. For the next three years. I almost married her.

As an adult, there have been three other women, each one more perfect — in some way I couldn’t explain — than the previous one. Not a single one of the women has actually been perfect, of course, but I was changed in powerful ways by having loved each of them.

What I’ve slowly learned is that being in love brings out something like a superpower in me. I’m a different person when I’m in love. I can achieve more. I’m a better human being. I become a finer version of myself.

I’m coming to understand that this person is who I need to be all the time. Russian novelist Anton Chekhov understood this more than most.

“Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state,” Chekhov wrote. “Being in love shows a person who he should be.” 

Being in love has shown me who I need to be. It has shown me the best that I can become.

There’s probably no experience of life which is more confusing than love. The wisdom we learn about love frequently turns out to be rubbish. We rarely have perfect understanding of what we’re going through, because our emotions leave us feeling something like whiplash — and people who are scared or cynical can teach us to set love aside in favor of other things, especially as we get older.

(In that regard, I’m thinking of the woman and her daughter who I overheard a few days ago and wrote about.)

As we get older, we get more focused on money and success and status in life. We lose touch with our need for love. We often forget what we felt like when we were in love. And we elevate those other priorities over love — to the point that we lose track of what should be our normal state.

It’s not popular today to admit that we really need a partner. We’re supposed to be disdainful of the sort of sappy sentiment that comes with the idea that two people can “complete each other.” We’re supposed to believe that each one of us in an independent island — and we simply make alliances with those on their own islands when those alliances are convenient.

But we’re not supposed to believe we need each other. I believe this is a lie that modern culture is preaching to us.

I believe we need love.

I need one specific partner. Whoever she is, she needs me, too. Each one of us makes the other a better person. We’re not competing with each other for power or control or position. We’re not fighting one another.

We’re partners who work together for the common good of the family unit we’ve built around our relationship.

I know what I can be at my best. When I’m honest with myself, I know that because it’s what I’ve seen in myself when I’ve been in love. I have more self-control. I have more empathy. I have more kindness. I’m more self-sacrificing. And I can achieve more when I’m in love — because I want to do great things for someone who I love.

Modern culture hates the family partnership which is held together with love and understanding and mutual respect. Our dysfunctional culture teaches us to replace these things with pleasure and selfish ego satisfaction. And we wonder why so many of the homes we build are full of strife and unhappiness rather than the love and understanding that we always wanted.

We can’t turn love on and off at will. Life would be simpler if we could. But when love does come and stay, it should be cherished and nurtured. And when there is mutual love and understanding, those things should be the foundations for a lasting and healthy relationship.

Each love of my life has been better in some vital way than the ones that came before it. I have faith that the next one will be the best yet. And I have hope that the next love will be the one which comes and stays for good.

If we will stop looking at love as a passing fancy which will burn itself out with fading sexual energy — and look at it instead as something which shows us what we are at our best — we can transform our lives.

I need to love. And I need to be loved.

I’ve seen what I can be when I have that — and I want it again. I need it again. Maybe you do, too.

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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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