Can I talk myself into not wanting great things I fear I’ll never have?

By David McElroy · October 19, 2017

It’s been almost 30 years since I figured out — much to my surprise — that what I really wanted more than anything else vocationally was to be an artist. And I’ve spent most of the years since then explaining to myself over and over why this isn’t possible.

After enough reasonable explanation, I start getting numb to what I want. I forget what it feels like. I turn my attention elsewhere and tell myself that realistic people do other things. Maybe I can make filmmaking a hobby if I do really well for awhile at something I hate.

Doesn’t that make sense? I can make a few hundred thousand dollars a year as a real estate broker. How about that? Isn’t that more realistic? Sure. Why not. I’ll do that. It all makes so much sense. And it sounds so responsible.

And so I start burying what I know — every now and then, at least — that I want. Until somebody comes along and pokes a stick at something I try hard not to look at.

That’s what happened today.

I got a message from a friend early this morning asking whether I was working on any films right now. I always have at least half a dozen projects at various stages of development and one of them fit the sort of project he was curious about.

I explained the idea to him. It’s one of my favorite ideas and it’s been kicking around at various stages of script development for about 10 years. It would be funny and would also be interesting social commentary. It should be easy to understand for audiences and thus accessible to a wide enough range of people to give it a shot at being popular. Best of all, it seems to be within my capabilities as a filmmaker.

But instead of just being interested in the idea, my friend asked if I had ever considered a particular method of raising money to make a series of films. He had an idea. It was something I’d never thought about. It might work. It might be crazy. I have no idea. But my friend suggested that it might be realistic to raise about $50 million with this idea.

What I felt next is the interesting part of the story.

For a decade, I’ve wanted to make this film and others. But I’ve slowly convinced myself that it’s not that big a deal. I’ve slowly convinced myself that I must not want it very much. In fact, I want it so little that it would be better to be “realistic” and work in real estate. Or something like that.

But when my friend threw the crazy idea of $50 million at me, everything changed. I felt passion for making some movies. It sounded crazy to spend another day doing anything else. If I had $50 million — or $10 million or even a few hundred thousand dollars — I’d make a movie and then try to find the money to make another. And another. And another.

I have things I want to say. I have funny ideas that I want to see on the screen. I have movies that I would like to make for specific people and for myself. If I had the money, I would joyfully work hard to make the best art I could possibly make — and it wouldn’t be work as much as it would be the passion of sharing the ideas and emotions and humor that I love with others.

When my friend mentioned this crazy possibility, I wanted it badly. Not because I wanted the money. (Although the money would be nice, too.) I wanted it because making these films would be an expression of myself, not drudgery that I was doing to hope to be worthy of a future family who needed my financial support.

I have no idea whether what my friend mentioned today is possible or not. That’s not even the point here. The point is that when I thought filmmaking was possible, I knew I wanted it. And I knew I wanted to run away from doing anything else.

What about you?

What do you want that you are trying to convince yourself that you don’t want? What is it that you believe you can’t have? What need or desire are you repressing because you think it can’t happen?

Try this. For the next 60 seconds, just close your eyes and imagine what your life would be like if you really could have whatever it is you want. What does it look like? What does it sound like? What physical sensations come with it? Imagine that it’s real. Feel it vividly.

Now how does that make you feel?

If you allowed yourself to imagine the feelings honestly, you now know whether it’s worth setting your fears aside. In that moment of imagining, what did your heart tell you? Do you still want it? Or is your life just fine without it?

If your heart is fine without you having this thing, then move on. Quit looking back. If it doesn’t matter that much to you, why waste your time and energy?

But if your heart knew in your moment of imagination that you really do want it, then stop lying to yourself. If it’s something about which you have a choice, make the choice to give yourself the future you want and need.

I need someone to remind me of this every day, because most days I’m scared and my Lizard Brain is trying to talk me into being “realistic.” (I hate that word.)

My Lizard Brain thinks it’s a great idea to be a real estate broker. My Heart knows there’s no direction other than making films. But my Lizard Brain and my Heart are still fighting it out.

I hope my Heart can win, whether I can raise $50 million or not.

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It’s something I wrote four and a half years ago — in the desperation of loneliness — and it’s become my most popular article. It’s not my best writing. It’s raw and unpolished. But it seems as though a lot of people can identify with it. It’s called Missing someone creates intense physical sensations in my heart. Just to give you an idea how many people still read it, I had 11,586 people visit the page last month — from 2,907 cities and towns around the world. London sent the most readers for it, followed by New York, Westminster, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Sydney, Toronto and almost 3,000 more. I’ve noticed something interesting. It always gets the most hits from an area of the world in the late hours, right after midnight, and that breaks my heart — because I understand why. All these people are so lonely and are missing someone so much that they turn to a search engine looking for answers, so they stumble upon this piece. I wrote this late at night on the day after Christmas because my heart was breaking. I needed to express how much I missed someone, and a lot of people seem to identify with it. If you’re one of those people, I have no way of knowing who you are, but I empathize with you. I know why you hurt. I wish I could do more to help. I hurt with you, because after all this time, I still feel the same way.

I just found out that a long-time Facebook friend died a few days ago. I never met Tom Ender, but reading his posts and interacting with him over the years made me feel as though I knew him. He was a kind and gentle man who was also a fierce and principled individualist. When his long-time wife, Julie, died several years ago, it broke his heart. About a year ago, he posted an old photo from their wedding long ago and wrote, “18 months ago, Julie passed from this world. I believe we will meet again, though I don’t know details of how.” As I mourn the death of this gentle and brilliant man, my fondest hope is that he and Julie are together again by now. Goodbye, Tom.

When Francesca Montanaro’s school shut down in March due to fears about the new new coronavirus, she had nowhere to go. Francesca’s mother is a nurse working long hours in New York City. The grandparents who would otherwise have provided child-care were old enough to be vulnerable to the bug, so they were out. That meant Francesca has spent the last few months with her dad at his pizza shop in the Bronx. In this six-minute piece from Radio Diaries and NPR, we take a look at what it’s been like to be a bright and typical 11-year-old thrust into a completely different world. She puts pizza boxes together and answers phones. She’s even learned to make perfect pizzas. I found the story touching. It reminds me of the degree to which children used to learn more about the real world than they do today. Even though she won’t follow in the pizza-making footsteps of her father, I’ll bet this will be one of the defining experiences of her childhood, one that she will treasure for years to come.

I noticed three instances over the weekend of people talking about Donald Trump’s “campaign of hate.” I wanted to correct them — because they misunderstand this narcissist — but I knew they wouldn’t get my point. It’s not that I’m defending him, because what he does is worse than hate. You simply have to understand the way narcissists think to understand him. Trump doesn’t hate. It’s worse than hate. He’s indifferent and angry with anyone who doesn’t obey him and worship him, those who don’t give him what’s called “narcissistic supply.” People believe that Trump hates blacks or Hispanics or foreigners or whatever group which he’s seen as hating. It’s true that he experiences rage at people who will not give him what he wants, but he’s not in touch enough with his real self to feel real hatred, much less to feel real love. He’s like a vampire who sucks all the available praise and adoration from any group of people — any way he can get it. He doesn’t love rural, blue-collar white folks, but their adoration gives him what he craves. He’s not emotionally mature enough even to hate. For a narcissist, people are simply objects to manipulate, depending on what he can get from them. Trump’s indifference is far worse than hatred. This isn’t ideological or political. It’s pathological. He’s not mature enough to hate.

The decline of modern culture can be seen clearly by looking at what passes for public discourse. There was a time when people who wanted their ideas accepted made rational arguments. It was assumed that most people were bright enough and rational enough to evaluate those arguments — and a surprising number of them really were. Today, the arguments are made in the form of irrational and simplistic graphics called “memes.” Because these graphics can’t convey complex or nuanced information, they present dumbed-down presentations of positions which are stunningly juvenile and seem designed to offend rather than to convince. We have regressed from books and dense pamphlets to a level more like that of angry kindergartners making crayon-scrawled hate notes to send to other children. Reason no longer plays a role in public discourse, and this signals the coming fall of this society.

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