I feel hope for future, because truth is real and love is possible

By David McElroy · April 10, 2026

There are times when I love this life so much that I can barely stand it.

When I see this world — and the life I live within it — in the context of nature and its reality, my heart has trouble expressing its joy. But when I see my life through the lens of my ego and my greed and my lust for more material things, I am miserable — no matter how much I have.

After another long night of struggling to create things that matter to me, I found myself driving to get breakfast biscuits at 5 a.m. Thursday. I knew I should be in bed, but I was so excited about what I was feeling that I didn’t want to go to sleep.

As I drove the five minutes to the restaurant, I felt relaxed and joyful and happy. My heart was full and I loved life. I prayed a prayer as I drove, thanking God for what I was feeling.

I realized — not for the first time — that one of the keys to being happy in life is learning to be satisfied with what you already have. I’m miserable when I constantly believe that I need something material added to my life.

I realized that I felt joyful because I have complete faith in the truth and beauty of nature. I felt grateful for these gifts that had been given to me. And I felt joyful to realize that loving connection with others was still possible — and that this was completely within my grasp.

I’m very aware of all the evil and ugliness and pain in this world. My joy about truth and beauty doesn’t negate those terrible things which we humans do to ourselves and to each other. But I realized that I was free to decide which side of the ledger to look at.

When I choose to look at the ugly parts of life, I find myself looking for things to make myself feel better. I inevitably find ways to think that if I had more of this or more of that, life would be better. And when I feel like that, all it does is make me feel a terrible sense of lack.

It makes me feel the way Adam and Eve felt when they realized they were naked. Until then, they hadn’t known to want or need to cover their bodies, but the knowledge they gained about their lack made them unhappy.

That’s what happens to me when I dwell on things I don’t have. Or, even worse, when I think about things that other people have that I don’t have. Things that I might feel as though I deserve. That sort of envy is poison to my soul.

The ancient Greeks saw a connection between beauty and truth. That used to baffle me, but I get it now. The truth of the reality of this world is beautiful. It’s majestic. It’s glorious. Even pain and death and decay serve their purposes within the context of a beautiful and honest system of reality.

When we live in accord with the truth of reality, we can experience beauty and harmony. And when we keep our eyes fixed on staying within the bounds of God’s truth and beauty, that’s when we can learn to experience the love and connection that every single one of us needs so desperately.

It would be convenient if I had more money — or more of a number of things — but nothing that money could buy can make me more joyful about life. Focusing on wanting more — once I’ve taken care of my most basic needs, of course — just takes my eyes off the things that really matter.

I have so much to think about these days. I have so much to experience. The more my heart is quiet and open, the more I experience of the beauty and truth which are there whether I see them or not. And the more I see those things — and the more I focus on them — the more my heart and mind are ready to experience the love which I need.

In my best moments, my mind is painfully aware of the evil and pain of this world, but my heart is joyfully and lovingly dancing — because I know truth and beauty are real. And because I know that loving connection with others is still possible for me.

Note: You can find a video version of this article on YouTube. Click here.

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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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