David McElroy

This is the second of a three-part series about where I’m going with my life and work.

We no longer live in the Age of Reason. Or even the Age of Enlightenment. Today, we live in what might be called the Age of Entertainment.

Those who don’t entertain the public are marginalized or trivialized. It’s easier than ever to publish or broadcast to almost everybody in the world, but what good is that when the cultural norm is for consumers to dive into mindless entertainment and trivia? What good is it to publish if few will read? What good is it to speak if almost nobody will hear?

What good is reasoned argument if few are willing to think?

There was a time when I was certain I could rationally explain to any person why he was wrong about anything. I was confident in the power of reason. I also assumed that other people wanted to know the truth if they were mistaken. I believed that if I showed people the morality of individual freedom — of voluntary self-ownership by every individual — I could change the world.

And more than anything else, I assumed that I was right about everything. I’ve slowly had to accept that my reasoned assumptions were wrong — about almost everything.

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This is the first of a three-part series about where I’m going with my life and work.

When I was around 10 years old, I got interested in drawing. Although my parents had divorced and my father had custody, I still saw my mother at times. She was delighted with my newfound interest in art.

My father didn’t think much of the idea, but my mother got a full-time artist — one of her old college friends — to come to our house in Anniston, Ala., and talk with me about how I could develop my skills. Nothing came of that and I barely thought of it for years.

I’ve been thinking lately that this was one of the first skirmishes in an inner war — one that has been both intellectual and spiritual — that’s gone on inside me ever since I was a child. My parents represented very different approaches to intellect and life and philosophy.

Neither approach is wrong or evil. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Part of me is ruled by one and another part is ruled by the other. They’re both essential parts of me.

But for most of my life, I’ve followed my father’s rational and factual approach. It was about making direct arguments and seeing the world in concrete and practical terms. My mother’s approach was more artistic and abstract. Even mystical. It was about intuition and following what felt right.

It’s easier to make it in the world if you’re able to live by my father’s rules. But I’m slowly concluding that this pragmatic approach will never work for me. I’ve admitted this before. Several times. But I keep getting scared of the alternative.

I’m terrified to say this, but I fear that I’ll never have any peace until I follow my mother’s more intuitive and abstract path — right over the artistic cliff into the world of creation.

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I’m the hero of my own movie or television show. Each one of us is the protagonist of the novel of his own life.

In the narrative of my life, you might be the antagonist. Or maybe you’re the comic buffoon. Or the love interest. Or maybe you don’t exist in the narrative which plays out in my head.

From a very early age, I consciously chose characters who embodied the strengths I wanted to see in myself. More than anything, these were the things I wanted other people to see in me.

I wanted to be Capt. James T. Kirk, commander of the starship Enterprise. I wanted to be the hero who was admired for my many achievements. I wanted to be a leader among men. I wanted women to admire me. I wanted to be loved and adored.

In the last few days, I’ve been re-reading John Kennedy Toole’s Pulitzer-winning novel of southern literature, “A Confederacy of Dunces.” As I’m approaching the end of the book, I had a distressing thought.

What if I’m more like the tragicomic antihero of this book than I’ll ever be like Capt. Kirk? What if I’m a lazy and delusional man whose own failings make his life miserable?

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