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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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David McElroy

Nature made me like my mother, but my father tried to erase that

By David McElroy · September 27, 2020

I’ve spent my entire life at war with myself. It’s exhausting.

This isn’t a conflict most people recognize. I don’t blame them, though, because I lived with the conflict for decades without understanding this war within. My nature pushed me in one direction, but my childhood programming pushed me in another. Instead of choosing between them, I tried to have one foot on each side.

I wanted to be perfect. I tried to be competent, logical, driven, faultless, charming and well-adjusted. But something inside pushed me to be creative, brilliant, mercurial, iconoclastic and eccentric. I didn’t understand the natural tradeoffs of life.

When I was growing up, my father told me I was just like him. For a long time, I believed him. I tried to emulate him. Through constant self-discipline, I played the role he dictated for me. I loathed the part of myself that was more like my mother. I suppressed it. I denied it. I ignored it.

But I’ll never be what he wanted me to be. I know how to act that role. I can fake it. But on the inside, I’m the eccentric creative type struggling to get past the conventional mask I wear for the world.

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Heart that truly loves is a servant for another’s happiness and peace

By David McElroy · September 25, 2020

She says she still loves him. Still wants him. Still treasures him above all others.

But she also spent half of our time at dinner tonight telling me the ways she wants to hurt him. She knows things about his business affairs that could hurt him if she revealed her secrets. There’s something he did recently that would embarrass him if his friends knew. She knows his secrets — and she’s trying to decide which of these terrible traps to spring.

She says she loves him. She says he means more to her than anything. But he has rejected her now — nicely, gently, but still a rejection — and this man who means everything to her must pay. She intends to hurt him.

I had dinner with this friend tonight. She had been engaged for six months until her love told her a month ago that he thought they were making a mistake. He was decent and kind, but he broke the engagement. He ended their relationship.

For weeks, I had offered no advice. I had just listened. But tonight, she asked me for advice.

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Briefly: Old music paints beautiful picture of ‘Matters of the Heart’

By David McElroy · September 21, 2020

After I wrote last night about being happy, I thought of an old song that mirrored what I was feeling. After listening to the entire album, I found it remarkable how well the emotions of that music match my own heart at this point in my life. Bob Bennett’s “Matters of the Heart” came out while I was in college. Even after all these years, it holds up really well, and you can listen to the entire album on YouTube. The specific song which matched my feelings last night was “Madness Dancing,” but I still find every song on the album to be strong with the exception of the eighth and ninth. (The song about his parents, called “1951,” is especially poignant.) In fact, the opening and closing songs paint a picture of my heart at its best now in these lines: “A light shining in this heart of darkness, A new beginning and a miracle, Day by day the integration of the concrete and the spiritual.” It’s old music that you’ve probably never heard, but it means a lot to me.

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My Instagram

For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, check out the sponsor of one of my upcoming YouTube video episodes. 🙃 #parody #threestooges
Have you felt as though you’re living through Grou Have you felt as though you’re living through Groundhog Day lately? Me, too. Here’s a quick-and-dirty political satire I made this evening for fun and stress relief.
About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color is poking through the skies to the east of my back yard.
The lights and color might have been more spectacu The lights and color might have been more spectacular a couple of minutes before this, but this was the best view I had of the Monday afternoon sunset from a bridge over I-20 in Moody, Ala.
I just remembered this shot I got a couple of hour I just remembered this shot I got a couple of hours ago of the fading sunset while I was in the Publix parking lot on the way home. If you suddenly find yourself craving Arby’s or Wendy’s, blame the giant icons in the sky, not me. 😃 (BTW, this was with the iPhone’s 8X telephoto lens.) #nature #naturephotography #sunset #birmingham #alabama
I had just pulled into a parking lot Friday night I had just pulled into a parking lot Friday night and was watching traffic through the distortion of the gently falling rain on my car window when I realized that the abstract view I had matched the way I was feeling tonight, so I turned it into a brief abstract video to match my mood.
Get ready for the next great animated Christmas cl Get ready for the next great animated Christmas classic, featuring singing and dancing and danger from Alex, Oliver and Sam. Coming soon to a theater near you. (The funniest part is that if I cared about this as anything more than a Christmas joke, it strikes me as something that could be profitable with the right story development and the right animators.)
Here are a couple of views of the sunset I just wa Here are a couple of views of the sunset I just watched on my way home after showing houses. I didn’t have my camera with me, so these are just iPhone shots. #nature #naturephotography #sunset #birmingham #alabama
This is what it might look like if the cats and I This is what it might look like if the cats and I were cast in a Wes Anderson film.
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For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, check out the sponsor of one of my upcoming YouTube video episodes. 🙃 #parody #threestooges
When I got home late Sunday afternoon and laid dow When I got home late Sunday afternoon and laid down on the bed, Oliver climbed onto my chest to make sure I knew he had conquered me.
The sun has been up for nearly half an hour, but A The sun has been up for nearly half an hour, but Alex sees no reason he should follow suit — especially on a morning when it’s so dark and foggy outside.
This is a wide-angle view of Oliver trying to stay This is a wide-angle view of Oliver trying to stay awake as he relaxes on my arm late Saturday night.
When I told Alex that I was going out for the even When I told Alex that I was going out for the evening, he lifted his head, but only long enough to make it clear that he expected me home by the time he was hungry again.
It’s after 7 a.m., but Alex thinks that is far too It’s after 7 a.m., but Alex thinks that is far too early to get up on a Friday morning, so after looking around briefly, he’s gone back to sleep in the cat bed on my desk.
Instagram post 18343137238245320 Instagram post 18343137238245320
Alex has been hanging out with me after midnight, Alex has been hanging out with me after midnight, but maybe we’re all going to get to bed earlier than usual tonight.
Here’s the next in a series of ridiculous video pa Here’s the next in a series of ridiculous video parodies I’ve been making recently for my YouTube channel.
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Briefly

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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