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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Genetics, culture work together to drive us to pursue what we want

By David McElroy · December 24, 2017

Some people believe holidays change people, but I think they’re far more likely to bring out what’s already inside — for good or for bad. Holidays that center around family frequently tell me who someone really is.

I pay more attention to children than most adults do. I watch families. I talk with children when I can. I take them seriously and I play with them frivolously. I love their world and I love the ways in which they can change how I see my own world.

That’s never more true than around Christmas.

Whether children are from families which are religious or not, there seems to be something magical that takes over around this time. (I presume the same is true in cultures where there are other religious and cultural traditions, but my experience is in an American Christian cultural context.)

Something I experience in these children at this time changes me — or at least brings out something in a stronger way that’s always there.

I watch happy children singing Christmas songs for parents and grandparents. I watch their eyes light up as they talk about stories they’ve learned, whether it’s about Jesus or Santa or the Grinch. Some of the excitement is about what they hope to receive, but there’s definitely something more.

It’s as though they experience a certain kind of magic in this season — and it rubs off on some of the lucky ones around them who pay attention.

Nothing makes me want children of my own the way this season does. I can’t rationally explain that. In fact, I can tell you why the rational thing is to avoid having children. They’re expensive. They’re a lot of work. They put a lot of things in your life on hold (if you spend enough time with them). And no matter how you raise your children, it’s possible you’ll end up with your heart broken — and you might not even be able to understand why, even when it’s clearly explained to you.

But something in me needs to create life and raise happy, healthy children — and I have very specific instinctive ideas about the sort of woman I have to reproduce with. I can’t explain where those strong convictions came from. I can’t justify that they’re right. I certainly can’t force them to become reality.

I just know — in the most secret part of my heart — what is right and what ought to be. There are times when what you know is right trumps all reason and all other logical desires and conclusion.

Around this time of year, the urge to make this a reality becomes more like an obsession. I’m driven to do whatever is necessary to build the reality I see so clearly in those images in my heart.

Maybe I’m not alone in this. Just today, I ran across a journal article that shows people across 129 countries (where data are available) become more interested in sex and reproduction at the times of their culture’s equivalent of our Christmas season. In a paper called “Human Sexual Cycles are Driven by Culture and Match Collective Moods,” five researchers show in dry statistical language that this is true.

On the surface, it’s about sex, but on a deeper level, it’s really about sex as a means of expressing a desire to fulfill a genetic and cultural imperative to reproduce. In language that’s not so dry and statistical, it really means there’s something about this time of year that makes us even more likely to want to become what we already want to be — and what I want is to be a husband to the right woman and father of our children.

This season makes some people bigger jerks than usual. It makes other people more greedy than ever. It makes some people put on airs to try to impress other people with their wealth and social position. It makes some people eager to drink alcohol and consume other recreational drugs — in attempts to escape what they are or to find some sort of pleasure they can’t find in their sober states.

Whatever people are — whatever people want — they seem to become that much more of that right now.

This season fills me with the longing for children — and all the things which come with that in my mind’s eye.

This isn’t a sudden revelation for me and it’s not news to anyone who knows me well. But it’s not a rational desire or goal. It’s not like a desire for a nice house or better clothes or shiny gadgets. It’s more like the desire for air or food or water.

It’s a fierce desire to fulfill one of the key reasons I’m alive.

Many people have no such desire to reproduce. And even some of the ones who want children in a theoretical sense have no interest in doing the difficult work of nurturing them in healthy ways once they’re born. I have no objection to people not having children. In fact, many children would be better off without being born to certain parents. (The most important decision you ever make for your children is who the other parent will be — and many people fail to take that decision seriously enough.)

I’m not saying everybody ought to have kids. I’m just saying that I need children. Something in my genes drives me toward that — and the study I read today makes it clear that culture drives others to feel this way, too.

On this Christmas Eve, I know plenty of people who are enjoying spending time with their children, delighting in the wonder that these young children are experiencing. I envy them. Now that stores and restaurants are closed — and church services are finished for the evening — I’m at home alone with a dog and a bunch of cats.

I love my little zoo, but they can’t take the place of what both genetics and culture are driving me toward. I want this every single day of the year, but at this time above all, I need to be a husband and father.

That’s the part of me that gets magnified right now, because it’s who I am in my heart.

Merry Christmas to everybody, but especially those children who are experiencing the magic which I long to experience with kids of my own.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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