When the Heart Gets What It Wants
Life Lessons from Woody Allen
by Chuck Colson

“The heart wants what it wants.”

You may remember those words. They’re the excuse Woody Allen offered in 1992 for leaving his longtime lover to run off with her daughter. Even many of Allen’s fans were repulsed by the affair and by Allen’s cavalier attitude.

Cut to 2006. Allen is married to Soon-Yi Previn, the young woman at the center of the scandal, and they now have two children. His film career, after a slump, is again going strong. The scandal has more or less faded into a dim memory.

So Allen’s heart got what it wanted. According to the unwritten laws of our culture—and according to the philosophy he expressed in that infamous sentence—he ought to be happy.

Only he’s not, according to a new interview in the Washington Post. Interviewer David Segal quips that Allen’s worldview “is so bereft of meaning, so godless and absurd, that the only proper response is to curl up on a sofa and howl for your mommy.” the rest