David McElroy

I have horribly mixed feelings about Valentine’s Day. I grew up being told that it’s a very artificial holiday made up by companies that want to sell you something. That still makes sense to my head, but my heart strongly identifies with the things we associate with the day.

In a lot of ways, that head vs. heart struggle perfectly captures all of my lifelong struggles with loving and being loved.

Preview of new week’s show: It was about 16 years ago when I got an unexpected first-hand lesson in how motivation really works. I had wanted to make a film for something like 20 years, but I kept finding every excuse in the book not to overcome my fears. And then I met a woman who was impressed that I was going to make a film. I wanted her to love me — and I was shooting my film less than 90 days later.

Next week, we’re going to talk about how love can motivate us to do things we didn’t know we could do.

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Your culture is slowly going insane — and you are under increasing pressure to conform to the insanity.

Living a life which seems to be sane and emotionally healthy by my standards is slowly becoming “radical” by this culture’s standards. To step back from the conformity and collectivism increasingly demanded by culture is now considered weird and radical.

This makes it far more difficult to find friends, allies and even a life partner, because most people unconsciously want to conform to the norms of their culture, even if they fear there’s something dysfunctional going on.

For the most part, normal people don’t even consciously notice that the culture is sick. It‘s perfectly natural for human beings to go along with crowds in unthinking ways. We are trained from an early age to fit in with other people — to earn their approval and to do the things we believe will make them love us.

But what if you’re one of those rare people who see the growing sickness? What if you wake up from the mindless conformity that has been programmed into you? How can you live an emotionally healthy and sane life in a world where almost everyone seems to be bumper to bumper on the highway to self-destruction?

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When I named editor of my high school newspaper, I was too ignorant to be scared.

I knew very little about producing a newspaper. I had joined the staff of my high school newspaper — the Viking — only because the newspaper sponsor asked if I wanted to join. I spent a year on staff as a junior before finagling my way to taking charge as editor the next year.

The guy flanking me in this photo was my best friend, Larry. I named him as news editor, but it didn’t matter what his title was. He was simply my partner in making everything happen.

As my senior year approached, I realized that I was afraid of looking foolish. I realized how little I knew. I set up a meeting in the summer with the publisher of the newspaper which printed our paper. I got him to set up meetings for me with the typesetters and camera room departments which I would be working with. I threw myself into learning technical details so I could do things which weren’t normal for a high school newspaper.

As I face another big transition in my life right now, I realize that my fear of looking foolish in that role pushed me in a way that nothing else could have. And I realize that I was setting a precedent for how I would handle every major change of my life for decades to come.

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