David McElroy

Most people don’t begin to live until they know they’re going to die.

In 1952, Japanese director Akira Kurosawa explored that uncomfortable truth in his film “Ikiru,” which translates “to live.” The film opens with a quiet, devastating fact: Kanji Watanabe is dying. We know it before he does.

Watanabe has spent decades as a bureaucrat — a section chief in a city office — stamping papers, following procedure, preserving order. His wife is dead. He has devoted his life to saving money and providing for his son. He has done what was expected. He has been respectable. Responsible. Safe.

He has also been spiritually absent from his own life.

When he learns he has cancer and has only months to live, he feels hollow. The routines that once filled his days now feel meaningless. He first tries distraction and pleasure. That fails. Then, almost accidentally, he discovers something different: purpose. He throws himself into one small but meaningful public project and finds, at last, a sense of peace.

In the final image we see of him, he sits alone on a swing in the snow, softly singing a song from his youth about how brief life is. It is one of the most haunting scenes ever filmed — not because of tragedy, but because of clarity. He has finally awakened.

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Every time you get outraged, someone makes money — and someone gains power.

Your outrage has a market value to a lot of people. News media, social media companies, politicians. They wouldn’t be crass enough — or honest enough — to put it that way, but it’s the truth.

Did you see what [Fill in the Blank] did today? Doesn’t that infuriate you? Isn’t it terrible? Aren’t you angry about it?

It doesn’t matter what the subject is. It doesn’t matter whether the report is fair or honest. It doesn’t matter if it’s completely made up. It doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong. All that matters is that you stay outraged — so the companies which make our mass media and social media can keep making money — and their political allies can use your outrage to seize more power over all of us

Why do you think you get these media services for free? It’s because you are their product. Social media companies and news media companies deliver your attention to advertisers. See? You are their product. As long as you’re paying attention, it doesn’t matter to them what you’re saying or thinking. They’re making money.

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This site has radically evolved over the last 15 years. With roughly 2,500 articles published in that time, it had become impossible for new readers to show up and hope to get a quick understanding of what I’m trying to do. As a result, I’ve finally published a new set of pages to act as a gateway for new readers.

At the top of the page, there’s a new link that says “New here?” which explains the basics of what I do on this site. On that page, there are links to six pages which categorize some of the major themes I’ve written about over the years.

Considering the sheer number of things I’ve written, the biggest problem that I had in creating this welcome section is that I honestly don’t remember most of what I’ve written. So the current choices might evolve as I remember things that would better represent the ideas I’m trying to write about.

If you have the time, I would appreciate it if those who already read the site will explore those welcome pages — to see if all the links work and whether you know of different articles which would be better choices than the ones I’ve chosen.

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