David McElroy

Briefly: Study suggests that living with cats good for mental health

By David McElroy · October 7, 2026

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

I struggle to love a flawed world because I struggle to love myself

By David McElroy · October 5, 2026

It’s hard for me to love other people. It’s even harder for me to love myself.

I was driving home from work Monday evening and I had just angrily hung up the phone. A woman had called me from a company that did some work at my house a few years ago. I didn’t like the way the company was handling its business with me, but it was nothing personal with the woman.

The thing that annoyed me wasn’t her fault. She was just reading a script. She was doing her job. But I was in a bad mood — and I took out my frustrations on her.

I wasn’t nasty or rude, but I certainly wasn’t kind or loving.

As I drove the rest of the way down I-459 toward home, I stewed in my irritation, but my annoyance quickly turned toward myself. I wasn’t upset with that woman or her company.

I lectured myself about being a hypocrite. I berated myself about my unwillingness to live up to my values when it wasn’t convenient — when I wasn’t in the right mood.

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Can AI ‘know’ you well enough to create a real personality profile?

By David McElroy · October 2, 2026

Here’s some weekend fun — if you don’t take it too seriously.

What’s your “personality mascot”? If you’ve been on any form of social media lately, you might have run across this latest fad.

I noticed a number of people who’ve posted cute little animal characters — squirrels, raccoons, owls, otters and more — who were customized by AI software to represent something about them.

I decided to give it a shot, but I had very low expectations.

What I had forgotten was that I happened to have AI software that knew quite a bit about me. I’ve had ChatGPT read hundreds of my articles from the last few years. I’ve also used the software for research and analysis, which had led to long and involved “conversations” about philosophy, science, culture, ethics and other important subjects.

So I asked ChatGPT to give me a well-crafted prompt that anyone could use to get a “personality mascot” and a complete description — along with an image — based on everything the software knew about the person.

It sounded fun, but I didn’t expect it to be much more entertaining than a Magic 8 Ball. I was wrong. The software took the task far more seriously than I had expected — and it had a lot more insight into me than I expected.

I’m going to give you the prompt you can use with any AI chatbot if you want to, but the trick is that this prompt requires the software to already know a lot about you (or to then “interview” you to learn enough to answer the question).

But before I give you the prompt to try for yourself, here’s what the software said for me. As I read this, I found myself thinking that this shows genuine insight about my own thoughts and feelings, which surprised me.

According to ChatGPT, I’m not an Otter or an Owl or any such thing. I am “the Lantern Keeper.” If you know me, you might think that much of this was written by someone else who knows me. Or maybe it’s just what I want to think about myself. How would I really know?

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

David McElroy

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