We frequently go back to the past hoping to find a different future

By David McElroy · March 4, 2018

My name ought to be mounted somewhere on this table, except for the fact that nobody but me would care, of course.

I’m sitting in a booth where I must have sat a thousand times before. It’s in a Whataburger restaurant in the Birmingham suburb of Trussville. Until I moved to a different suburb three years ago, this was my home away from home for many years.

When this place opened, it was the only restaurant near my house that was open 24 hours a day and had WiFi. Since I worked from home at the time and often welcomed the chance to get out, this became my second office. I was here at all hours of the day and night. All the employees knew me by name.

I have no reason to be over here today. I almost never come to this part of town anymore. But today is the second time recently that I’ve felt drawn to drive over here for no apparent reason. But I think I know why I’m here.

My everyday world is entirely different now than it was in those days. I have different restaurants where the employees know me. I’m working in two different offices and spending my time out selling real estate, too. I have no real connection to this world anymore.

But as I sit here in the late afternoon — with the sun starting to get into my eyes as it always has from this angle until it sinks below Chalkville Mountain — I find myself realizing that I’m trying to connect with something from the past. In an instinctive way, I’m looking for something familiar from better days — and I’m hoping that will somehow turn into something better for where I am now.

Consciously, I know how ridiculous this is, but here I am anyway.

I’ve experienced love here. I’ve experienced success of various kinds. I’ve been happy. I’ve made friends here.

I sat right there in the parking lot — just in front of the door, maybe 30 feet from where I am — and had a very important and meaningful phone conversation with someone who loved me. I was sitting at this table when I got the phone call that sealed a $25,000 profit on a political deal when I had rolled the dice and could have lost thousands of dollars instead. I’ve sat here with little children and played games and took pictures as they shrieked in delight that someone was giving them attention.

None of the stories matter to anyone anymore, but they still matter to me. They connect me to a time when I felt happier, when I had more money, when I felt loved, when I felt that I had a future family — when so much was better.

But here’s the thing. I don’t know whether it’s good to indulge this nostalgia or not. It’s an age-old dilemma. Do I need to look to the past for something I’ve lost — or do I need to cut all ties and thoughts of the past in order to find a happier life in the future?

I don’t know. I’m not even sure there’s a right answer. I could make an argument for either.

More and more lately, I find myself having to close the door on things from my past. It’s been a bitter experience and I’m not really good at it. As singer/songwriter Sam Phillips wrote, “I’m not good at things that I don’t want to do.”

I’m not happy to leave the last hopes of family behind. I’m not happy to give up on a love I desperately needed. I’m not happy about the feeling that I’m running out of time to start doing some things that matter to me.

So when I’m drawn here today, am I here to say goodbye to the past? Or am I hoping to find some piece of love or hope or success that I can capture in a bottle and try to grow again?

Unlike a lot of people, I’m willing to completely cut ties to the past if I’m sure it’s the right thing to do and if I’m sure of where I’m going. I know that what matters is my connection to people, not to places or dead memories. I could move away from this place and never look back if I had something better I was going to.

But since I don’t know where I’m going — and I don’t know who I might find love with — I’m stuck in this weird place where I’m looking to the past and hoping to find something better.

There’s a sweet nostalgia to sitting here and remembering what’s happened to me here in the past — but it’s also bitter to consider what I’ve lost and what I don’t yet know how to find.

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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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