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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Meeting with dead man left me pondering choices of life, death

By David McElroy · December 10, 2020

I met a dead man in a dream a few nights ago. I don’t know who he is, but I have a feeling I’ll meet him when I die.

I’ve had death on my mind a lot recently. I’d like to say that I don’t know why, but that’s not entirely true. I’ve had death on my mind because I’m afraid of dying — and there’s a growing part of me that fears death could be closer than I think.

I’ve never wanted to die, but I’ve always believed I had many decades yet to live. Lately, though, I’ve felt a horrible, gnawing fear of imminent death. This terrifies me, because I don’t want to die. I haven’t lived yet.

I don’t know who the dead man was, but I know he went to a lot of trouble to find me. He somehow asked me to come to a small place — a room which seemed like the waiting room of an old railway station — which was the only place where the dead and the living could talk.

I don’t know how to explain the place. It was a building that was at the very edge of the world of the living. On the other side was the world of the dead. Both the living and the dead could enter that waiting room to speak with one another, but neither group could cross over to the other side.

It was just this one tiny place where the dead and the living could exist at the same time. Maybe there were other such places. Maybe not. I just knew that this man had somehow called me to this room.

I didn’t know where I was going before I got there. I was following my instincts. I knew something was drawing me to the place that I’d never heard of and certainly had never seen. I walked there. As soon as I saw the modest building — which reminded me of a small-town railway depot from a hundred years ago — I knew someone was meeting me inside.

I stepped through the door. Inside, I found pairs of people sitting around the room — always pairs, never groups, never singles — talking quietly in serious tones.

And then I saw one lone man standing on the other side. He looked directly at me — and I knew he was the one who had asked me to come.

He never told me his name. At least, I don’t recall that he did. I can’t remember a lot of what he had to say. It was all a blur, but it all felt meaningful. I can’t tell you much about what he looked like, but he looked like any other normal man. About 45 years old. Casually dressed, like the sort of person who’d rather be in jeans than a suit or tie.

He told me we didn’t have long. I asked him whether that meant the time we had in this room was limited.

“I’m not allowed to stay here very long,” he said, “and your time to stay out there…” — he pointed to the world of the living, from which I’d come — “…is more limited than you might think. It ended for me far sooner than I ever thought it would. You can’t count on anything when you’re alive.”

He didn’t waste time. He told me he had asked me there because he wanted my help, but he told me I needed help, too, even if I didn’t realize it yet.

“There’s someone out there who I want you to take care of,” he said.

Without any preliminaries — such as her name or her connection to him — the man started explaining why this woman needed my help. He was vague about a lot, but he claimed she would die without intervention. He wouldn’t explain why it should be me to help her.

Then he told me that I was in danger and needed help more than I could possibly know.

“Unless you make changes in your life, you’re going to join me over here way sooner than you ought to,” he said. “And if you do that, you can’t help her.”

He wouldn’t explain that, but he told me that’s why I’ve been thinking so much about death. He told me it was a premonition, but it didn’t have to go that way — if I made changes in my life.

I asked him where I would find this woman and what help I was supposed to give her.

“Your heart knows,” he said. “I can’t tell you. I’m not allowed to say that much, but if you don’t already know, you’ll know when the time is right.”

He reminded me of a time in my past when I almost chose to marry a woman but couldn’t make the commitment. He told me I was going to face another moment of decision like that.

“Make the right decision this time,” he said. “Save yourself — and help me save someone who I love more than I loved my own life over there. You two can save each other.”

He told me to trust myself and do what I knew was right.

“Son, I’m not allowed to enter your world and save her myself,” he said. “If I could do that, I’d give up my very existence to save her from herself. I don’t have much hope in you, but you’re the best I have. I’m begging you not to mess this up. It means too much to me.”

And then we were leaving without warning. I was walking out the door on the way back to the world of the living. From the other side of the room — where he was about to go out the opposite door to the world of the dead — he called out to me once more.

“When you get over to my side, I’ll explain everything I wish I could tell you now,” he said. “Make sure she knows I love her!”

When I stepped outside, I was back in normal space. When I looked behind me, the building was gone. If it was there, I couldn’t find it. Either way, I had already been given all I could get from this ghostly encounter.

I don’t know why I dreamed that. In my heart, I think it was more than a dream, but I can’t prove that. I don’t know what this kind and loving man wants me to do. I don’t know who he wants me to help.

For the last couple of days, I haven’t felt like myself. My thinking has been fuzzy and lethargic. I’ve been forgetful. I don’t feel good in some undefined way. I feel so exhausted — in a deep down way in my soul — that I almost feel as though I’m going to just go to sleep and never wake up.

And such thoughts scare me — because I don’t want to die.

I’m not ready. I don’t like my life as it is now. It’s not a life that feels worth living, at least when I think about it tonight. But maybe it can be different. I don’t know how.

I feel beaten down. Emotionally exhausted. Spiritually tired. Physically weak. I don’t have much of the hope that has sustained me so well in the past. I don’t want to live this way.

I believe I’ll meet this dead man again once I’ve died. Then I’ll know who he is. I’ll know all the things he couldn’t tell me. Even though he doesn’t seem to have much hope that I can save this woman who he loves, I hope I can surprise him.

And if I save her, maybe I can save myself, too. It’s a crazy notion — and maybe it’s just a crazy dream from a crazy man’s unconscious — but having some hope in that is better than just waiting for death.

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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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