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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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I wanted to be Capt. James Kirk; have I become Ignatius J. Reilly?

By David McElroy · July 24, 2022

I’m the hero of my own movie or television show. Each one of us is the protagonist of the novel of his own life.

In the narrative of my life, you might be the antagonist. Or maybe you’re the comic buffoon. Or the love interest. Or maybe you don’t exist in the narrative which plays out in my head.

From a very early age, I consciously chose characters who embodied the strengths I wanted to see in myself. More than anything, these were the things I wanted other people to see in me.

I wanted to be Capt. James T. Kirk, commander of the starship Enterprise. I wanted to be the hero who was admired for my many achievements. I wanted to be a leader among men. I wanted women to admire me. I wanted to be loved and adored.

In the last few days, I’ve been re-reading John Kennedy Toole’s Pulitzer-winning novel of southern literature, “A Confederacy of Dunces.” As I’m approaching the end of the book, I had a distressing thought.

What if I’m more like the tragicomic antihero of this book than I’ll ever be like Capt. Kirk? What if I’m a lazy and delusional man whose own failings make his life miserable?

If you’ve read the novel, you know how revolting this question might be for me.

I can’t begin to list all of Ignatius J. Reilly’s flaws here. He’s an overeducated man — with a master’s in medieval history — who has been too lazy and maladapted to his world to use his intelligence and education. A lot of his intellectual and philosophical beliefs are pure nonsense. Much of what he believes is offensive to decent and reasonable people.

He’s a buffoon, but he doesn’t allow himself to see this. He sees himself as a victim of a society which is too intimidated of his greatness to accept him. He lies to himself and he lies to everybody else in his life.

As I’ve read the book this time, it’s been clear to me that he’s a narcissist as well. (I didn’t know enough about psychology to spot that when I read it before.)

Ignatius J. Reilly embodies much of what I would most be afraid to become. If I really were anything like him, I would become delusional, too. I would lie to myself about the reasons for where I am in life. And that’s what started the uncomfortable questions for me today.

Let me be clear about one thing. My life doesn’t mirror the specifics of Reilly’s twisted life and beliefs. He doesn’t love anybody or anything. All he cares about is himself. He’s a liar who’s willing to cause untold problems for other people just because some insane action might be good for himself in the moment.

I’m not saying that I’m like that. I truly don’t see myself as anything like those specifics.

But I see some echoes that are comparable. I’m not nearly as successful as I thought I’d be or as I wanted to be. I don’t have the big achievements that I expected to have. I feel as though I’m stuck in a world where I don’t fit — where I’m not appreciated, for reasons that I don’t understand.

Maybe the most uncomfortable comparison, though, is the simple fact that Reilly doesn’t fix the many problems in his life. He just bounces from one unhappy episode to the next.

Instead of finding a teaching position at a college — something for which he’s clearly qualified — Reilly finally agrees to take a clerical job at a pants factory. He does a lousy job but covers up his deficiencies. After eventually getting fired from that job — for attempting to lead the factory workers on a violent demand for higher wages — he ends up as a very unsuccessful hotdog vendor on the streets of New Orleans.

Although I had a lot of success earlier in life — in both newspapers and political consulting — the last 10 years of my life have been almost as pathetic as Reilly’s life. Why? I can’t tell you the reasons. Or maybe I know and I’m lying to myself. Maybe I’m just as delusional as Ignatius is.

The book is ridiculous literary fun. If you haven’t read it, I do recommend it for many people. Although I read the paper copy before, I’m listening to a delightfully good audiobook version this time. The narrator does an incredible job of bringing the various New Orleans dialects to life. (Check out the link for more.)

I’m not really Ignatius J. Reilly. I’m not. Honest. But I’m not Capt. James T. Kirk, either. And as I think about these two characters as opposite ends of a spectrum, I have this horrible feeling of terror that I’ve allowed myself to drift a lot more toward the Ignatius end of the spectrum — and I seem to have given up on my lofty desire to become Jim Kirk.

In my own mind, I’m still the star of this movie. The people around me are the ones who get in my way. Bad luck and an alien world full of imbeciles have made it difficult for me to be who I want to become.

I have excuses. I have reasons. I have plans to turn everything around and become successful and happy again. Maybe even loved. I really do.

But as I keep watching the delusional Ignatius getting in his own way — lying and bumbling through his failures — I fear there’s at least a tiny bit of him in me.

Although he makes a great antihero in a dark comedy, it’s terrifying to consider that maybe I’m further off-course in life than I’ve allowed myself to admit.

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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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