I keep searching for ‘my people’ on a planet where I’m the alien

By David McElroy · September 4, 2026

I keep being reminded that I don’t fit in this place.

That thought is always in the back of my mind. I’ve felt it for most of my life. But there are certain days when it seems as though the reminders are everywhere. After another one of those days Thursday, I am feeling incredibly alone tonight.

Again.

Nothing bad happened to me Thursday. Nobody rejected me or insulted me. I didn’t have an argument with anybody. Instead, I had two perfectly friendly conversations with people I’ve known for years, but I walked away from them feeling strangely depressed and isolated.

The specifics of the conversations don’t matter. In fact, explaining them would probably sidetrack what I have to say onto different issues. Neither person said anything shocking or offensive. They both simply expressed perfectly ordinary assumptions about life and the world around us — assumptions which wouldn’t have seemed noteworthy to most people.

But those two conversations jerked me back to reality. They reminded me that I’m the alien here.

Within the space of about half an hour Thursday afternoon, I had two separate reminders of just how differently I see the world than most of the people around me do. I was reminded of how casually people can hold beliefs which seem contradictory to me. I was reminded of how completely people can accept cultural habits and assumptions without ever seeming to question why they live the way they do.

Part of me wants to yell at them. Part of me wants to call them stupid. Part of me wants to argue sense into them by explaining things they don’t want to hear.

But I can’t be angry with them, because I understand the forces that have shaped their beliefs. Some of the issues are cultural and technological. Among the many issues is how the human brain resolves intellectual conflicts when emotions are involved.

In many ways, it would be easier if I didn’t understand the intellectual and psychological forces that shape what I saw. But the truth is that I do see and I do understand. And I know that I can’t change how people think and how they react to the cultural forces around them.

None of this is new to me. I’ve been writing about these things for years. I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to understand why our culture seems so dysfunctional to me and why so many things that seem normal to other people seem insane to me. I’ve written endlessly about politics and culture and technology and relationships and meaning and the ways in which I think modern life is making us less human.

I didn’t learn anything Thursday that I didn’t already know. I just had one of those moments when something I know intellectually suddenly became painfully real on an emotional level.

I don’t expect most people to agree with me. I gave up on that expectation a long time ago. I don’t even want everybody to agree with me, because I’m perfectly aware that I’m wrong about plenty of things. I have blind spots, and there are contradictions in my own unexamined thinking. (And I can think of a couple of examples in which I have actual contradictions in my views and I simply can’t resolve them, so I accept them for what they are.)

But I desperately want to find more people who share enough of my fundamental assumptions about life that I don’t feel as though I’m constantly translating myself into a language which everybody else can understand.

I want people who care about ideas and who are willing to examine whether their beliefs make sense. I want people who are suspicious of things which everybody else accepts simply because those things seem normal. I want people who read and think and create. I want people who care about freedom even when other people use that freedom in ways they dislike. I want people who care about truth and beauty and meaning. I want people who are trying to understand themselves and become better human beings.

I want people who look at this dysfunctional culture and don’t simply ask how we can win control of it. I want people who ask whether there might be a better way to live.

I know plenty of people who have some of those qualities. I know people who share my ideas about individual freedom but have little interest in the intellectual and spiritual questions which consume me. I know Christians who share my faith but who see politics and culture in ways which seem completely foreign to me. I know intelligent and educated people who have no interest in questioning the assumptions of modern mass culture. I know people who understand some of the things which matter most to me, but I rarely find people who understand enough of the whole for me to feel that sense of intellectual kinship I crave.

I don’t say that as a criticism of any of them. They have every right to care about whatever matters to them and to live in whatever ways make sense to them. The world doesn’t owe me a supply of people who happen to share my peculiar combination of values and interests.

But knowing that doesn’t make the loneliness disappear.

I’ve written before about feeling like an alien in this culture. I’ve written about my desire to find people who want to build something better instead of spending our lives fighting over control of what already exists. I’ve written about my longing for genuine community. These aren’t new ideas and I don’t have any new answers tonight.

I’m simply feeling the need for that community more painfully than usual.

There are times when I can happily spend hours alone reading and thinking and writing. I don’t need constant company and I’ve never needed a huge circle of friends. I’m not looking for a busy social calendar or a crowd of people to keep me entertained. What I’m missing is something much more specific.

I want intellectual and spiritual companionship. I want the experience of talking with someone and realizing that I don’t have to explain every assumption behind what I’m saying. I want to be part of a small community of people who are serious about trying to live differently and live better.

I don’t know where to find that.

That’s not a new realization. It’s not a question I suddenly thought to ask tonight. I’ve been asking it for years, and I’ve never found an answer which satisfies me.

Most days, I can put that question aside and get on with whatever I’m doing. I can read another book. I can write another essay. I can make something. I can enjoy the people who are already part of my life for exactly who they are instead of expecting them to be something they’re not.

But every now and then, something happens which reminds me just how much I’m missing.

That happened Thursday.

I don’t need to persuade the world to see things my way. I don’t need to start a movement. I don’t need millions of followers or thousands of admirers. I’m not looking for people who will agree with everything I say.

I just desperately need to find more of the people who feel like “home” to me.

I know you’re out there. I just don’t know how to find you.

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Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

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