David McElroy

Most people sense something is wrong.

They may not have language for it. They may not be able to explain it. But beneath the distractions, beneath the noise, beneath the endless scrolling and entertainment, there is a quiet unease — a feeling that something foundational has slipped.

We were told we were building the most advanced civilization in history. Scientific. Rational. Enlightened. Smarter than every generation that came before us.

So why does it feel so fragile?

For years, I believed the solution was better arguments. If something was wrong, it could be explained. If people misunderstood reality, clearer reasoning would fix it. If the culture drifted into confusion, the answer was more clarity.

I grew up believing in the power of direct language and linear logic. Declarative sentences. Cause and effect. If something was true, you could prove it.

But somewhere along the way, I began to notice that proof didn’t change much.

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It happens more often than I like to admit. There’s an angry inner voice that seems to have a mind of its own.

“I hate everybody!” the voice hisses angrily in my head.

For years, I’ve joked that there’s a wide-ranging conspiracy to make me a misanthrope — and I fear it’s working. The joke has been my attempt to reconcile two things which can’t be reconciled:

— I choose to love others, for their benefit and my own.

— I hate so many of the people around me every day.

Those two things can’t be reconciled, so I make jokes about it. The more contact I have with humans, the more I feel like a misanthrope — and I hate feeling that way. It makes me feel so wrong inside, but something in me wants to lash out — needs to lash out — as though I’m defending myself.

And I think I finally understand why.

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Emily is somewhere between Birmingham and Los Angeles by now. She was leaving on a plane around 2 p.m., because she’s moving back to California to marry a guy she went to high school with. Seeing me was one of the last things she did before she left town.

I can’t remember exactly when I met Emily. Maybe 10 or 11 years ago? Something like that. She had moved here to be with a guy she had met online while she was in college. They were in the last stages of their relationship by the time I met her. She worked at a store near my house and we used to talk a lot.

We would meet at the cafe of a book store near her job from time to time. We talked about books and ideas and love and life. She was bright and funny. We texted and emailed quite a bit. But I hadn’t seen her for something like seven or eight years — until today.

She emailed me Thursday night and asked if she could see me before she left town today. I didn’t know she was moving or getting married — and I had no idea why she wanted to see me.

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