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David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

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How can I share what’s obvious when nobody will listen or see?

By David McElroy · January 23, 2021

What if you knew a secret that the rest of the world needed to know? What if you could change lives with this knowledge? Would you share it with others?

Of course you would. If you saw a tornado coming, any normal person would warn others. If you knew of any danger which others couldn’t yet see, you would almost certainly do everything in your power to raise an alarm. You would tell others what was coming — and you’d warn them to escape the danger.

But what if others didn’t want to hear your warning? What if you knew that others wouldn’t listen? What if you realized they wouldn’t take you seriously — that they might even call you crazy?

If you had that knowledge in your mind — but you found that people around you wouldn’t listen — would you doubt yourself? Would you wonder whether you’re crazy? Would you throw your hands up in frustration and maintain a sullen silence — even though the coming storm seemed painfully obvious to you?

I believe in things I can’t see. You do, too. We might believe in different unseen things. We might have different reasons for coming to our beliefs, but at the very root of what we believe, we have some assumptions we make — because somebody has told us that something is true — and we build on those assumptions.

Your beliefs about unseen things might be based on what you have been taught to call science. You’ve been taught to believe in germs and atoms and electromagnetic forces. All modern people believe in those things.

We’ve been told that these things — and a million other things — explain our universe. We were taught that educated and intelligent people trust scientists and engineers and all sorts of other people who come up with theories and test those theories and then build technologies that change our lives.

But all of that is based on our belief in the accuracy of what we’ve been taught. Those things become such basic assumptions for us that we don’t even question whether they’re true.

Other people also believe in additional unseen things which they can’t prove. Some of us believe in God, even though we can’t prove there is any person or being or whatever you want to call it which we think of as God. For some of us, the existence of God feels just as obvious as the existence of wind or rain or dirt under our feet.

There are some things that we simply know in our bones to be true, even if we can’t prove it to anybody else.

My set of beliefs are probably different than yours are. Even if we both call ourselves Christians, for instance, your precise understanding of the nature of God and the nature of what we can know for sure might be slightly different.

And other people are absolutely certain of things that contradict my spiritual beliefs. Some people hold religious beliefs which conflict with my own. Others believe all sorts of things about the nature of reality which are completely different from my own.

Some people believe the world is flat. Some believe there are lizard-like aliens living among us. Others fervently believe in Bigfoot or one of a dozen other types of strange creatures. Some believe there are bizarre conspiracies that secretly rule our lives.

I question the intelligence and rationality of people who believe those sorts of things, but I’m well aware that there are plenty of people who question my intelligence and rationality for believing in God or for believing there’s anything beyond the material world.

Not all of what we believe is true. Some of what I believe is wrong. I simply don’t know which things I’m wrong about. Not yet. I might never understand the limits of my knowledge. But if I believe I know things which others need to hear, do I have a responsibility to share that? Even if they don’t want to hear?

I’m certainly no prophet. I don’t have a pipeline to God. I don’t have special knowledge about the truth of the Universe which isn’t also available to others.

No particular person owns truth, but there are many cases in which one person — and then another and another — discovers some particular truth before others. In human history, many of those people have been ridiculed or exiled or even killed for what they have discovered. (And some of those people have been wrong about what they believed, of course.)

I believe that I see some truths that our world needs to learn. I see them more clearly at some times than others. I sometimes allow myself to focus too much on the dysfunctional culture around me — and that often makes me lose sight of some truths I’ve discovered. The closer I allow myself to become to this culture, the more dimly I understand these things.

I haven’t yet figured out how to explain the truths which seem so urgent to me. When I try to explain, I struggle to find the words and images. I see others lose interest. I see my attempts to communicate these truths fail miserably. I end up wondering whether I should just remain silent — instead of struggling to find a way to finally explain what I know and make it clear to others who could benefit.

Ultimately, you will either connect with me or the truth I want to convey — or you won’t. And the truth is that most people won’t connect with what I’m trying to somehow get across. Most people won’t understand what I’m struggling to explain or why it matters. Most people’s eyes will continue to glaze over and think nothing of it.

But somewhere, there are people who understand — at least vaguely — the things which I’m trying to understand well enough to explain. There are a few who intuitively feel the truth of what I’m trying to share — who might even be excited and energized.

Somewhere, there is at least one person who can connect with my understanding of reality and say, “What a relief! I believe this, too! I thought I was the only one who understood it! We need to talk!”

I’ve talked before about how difficult it is to find a partner who shares enough of my peculiar view of the world to match with me — and this is another part of that difficulty. I need a partner who sees enough of the truth in what I have to share that it awakens something in her — enough to make her want to share my strange and difficult journey.

Most people aren’t going to understand. You almost certainly won’t understand. And that’s OK. I just need the right someone to somehow understand enough of the same things that I do — enough to say, “I believe in you — and maybe we could be part of this together.”

I’m struggling with the frustrations of seeing the world in a way that few others do. But I can’t shake my belief that I need to share things which others don’t want to hear.

I see dangers ahead for us all. My vision is dim and cloudy. But I see something that I know is real. I see something better than what’s offered by this dysfunctional culture. I go back and forth between wanting to shout it from the rooftops and wanting to remain silent and avoid the struggle.

I’ve finally accepted that I have to build my life with someone who understands this struggle and is willing to share it. And that knowledge makes me feel more alone than ever, because I know that all I have to say about what I see — in direct words or through art — will remain meaningless gibberish to almost everyone.

Note: I realize this is a serious departure from the things I typically write. I usually try to share things that can be useful or meaningful to others, but this was simply something I needed to say for myself. This one is more like publishing something from a personal journal. I hope you can forgive me for indulging my need to share this with the world, despite knowing it’s not for most people.

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Tyler Barnes will never be a basketball star. He probably peaked as a star high school player in Louisville, Ky. But for the last four years, he’s been a walk-on player for the University of Alabama. He’s a chemical engineering major with lots of academic honors who rides the bench because he loves being part of a team. He sometimes gets into games with a minute or two to go, but only if Alabama has a big lead. This Saturday, it was senior day for Alabama basketball, so it was his last chance to play in Coleman Coliseum. Alabama Coach Nate Oats says that one of the team starter’s came to him an hour before the game started — and fellow senior Alex Reese asked Oats if Barnes could start in his place for this one game. Even though the game was huge for Alabama, which is ranked No. 6 in the country and trying to wrap up an SEC title, Oats agreed. Barnes started and played the first three minutes, grabbing what was only the fourth rebound of his career and missing his only shot. Barnes has a great future as an engineer, but you’ll never again hear from him as a basketball player. For three shining minutes Saturday, though, he was a starter for a top-10 college basketball team — and his parents were in the stands from Kentucky to see it. There’s a lot of ugliness in college basketball right now, but this story makes me happy.

It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode in the car with me. She was on her way to her “forever home” with me that night, but she didn’t know it, so she was terrified. It was a much happier and braver girl who took a ride in the car tonight so we could go through a drive-through window and order a hamburger for her — to celebrate five years with me. She had a great time. If she could remember five years ago tonight, she would be proud of how far she’s come, too. If you’d like to know more about Lucy’s journey from scared dog to brave queen of the household, here’s something I wrote after her first year with me. I’m hoping this girl will have many more happy years with me.

I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

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