David McElroy

There’s nothing like thinking about death to focus your mind on how you really feel about life. I’ve been thinking about death a lot recently — for various reasons — and it’s left me loving life even more.

A couple of people have recently talked to me about wanting to die. That hits me hard, because I see both of them as having the capacity to have long and fulfilling lives ahead of them and because it’s so different from how I feel about life.

At the risk of sounding obvious, the specifics of life can be terribly difficult. I’m certainly not where I want to be. I don’t have the love or money or position or achievements that I’d like to have. I frequently don’t know how to get from where I am now to where I’d like to be — how to bring the vivid picture in my mind into being. But I’ve never lost hope. When Death comes for me, he’ll have to carry me kicking and screaming if he wants to take me.

Another reason I’ve had death on my mind this week is because of the death of a baby in a family on my street a week ago. The little boy was born six or eight weeks ago with serious problems. They were problems that could be fixed with surgery, but he had to get stronger to survive the surgery. He never got strong enough, so he died. His parents never got to hold him until the last moments when the life was slipping away from his tiny body.

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Do you ever have days when you feel like ditching the “civilized world” and moving to a remote cabin without leaving a forwarding address? I’ve been feeling that urge lately — and it’s getting stronger.

The more I know and understand people, the more I dislike most of them. I wish I could like more of them. I really do. There are a few who I care about deeply, to differing degrees, but the vast majority of people seem determined to present themselves in a way intended to make me hate the entire human race.

I’ve become sick of the vicious and nasty hatred that I read and hear from people simply because others have the temerity to disagree with them. I see it more online today than in real life, but I suspect it’s just because people feel anonymous enough online (even on Facebook) to vent their real feelings instead of hiding them as they do when they’re face to face with people.

I’ve become heartsick about the almost complete inability of a large percentage of people to even attempt to understand each other. So many people lash out in anger if they even suspect that someone disagrees with them on political or cultural issues.

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Have you noticed that politics is becoming more like television? There was a day — long before we were born — when politics was about ideas. Well … ideas, money and power. But at least there were real ideas involved back when politics was communicated solely through spoken or written words.

Today, politics is all a show. But it’s not just a spectator thing. It’s like a giant game show. With the help of the media, politics has become an elaborate version of the old game show, “Let’s Make a Deal.”

You all know how the game is played. Hundreds of people dress in ridiculous costumes, hoping for the chance to trade their dignity for unknown riches — just like those of us who line up like Dorothy and her pals asking the Wizard of Oz for gifts. But that’s mixing metaphors. Let’s look at the ways in which democracy is like “Let’s Make a Deal.”

First, everything’s apparently orchestrated by a slick huckster. In the TV show, we have Monty Hall. In real life, we have Monty Media. Yes, the media are there to make sure the right ideas are discussed, absorbed and approved of, shaping the conversation and excluding points of view they consider to be “outside the mainstream.” By shaping the conversation and guiding the process, the media decide which players get to play and what games they’re allowed to play.

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