David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

art

Though it’s helpful to have talent, that won’t guarantee success

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You are probably very talented at something. Maybe you’re talented at several things. I discovered when I was young that I had quite a bit of talent. When I was in school — competing against the fairly low expectations set by a typical school — that made it easy for me to stand out.

Once I got into the real world, I still had more talent than most people around me, but I didn’t achieve as much as I should have. I had achieved success as a student without even trying. Without realizing it, I was expecting life to work that way — but nobody showed up at my door to tell me how great I was. The world wasn’t eager to reward my alleged brilliance and talent.

It took me many years to consciously learn this lesson, but I eventually learned that talent is enough to give me a possibility of competing — but talent alone was never enough to let me win.

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We who believe life has meaning have lost war for modern culture

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My side lost the great culture war.

Who is it exactly who lost, though? At one time, I would have been myopic enough to say it was the Christian church that lost the battle, but I now see it as much broader. The people on my side — at least in the broadest sense — could come from various religions or no real religion at all. They might be humanists or New Agers or label themselves in other ways.

The only thing that unites all of these people — many of whom are barely on speaking terms — is that we believe life has meaning. We believe the culture ought to reflect positive values and provide an alternative to nihilism, even if many among that group would strongly disagree about what values they would like culture to reflect.

Modern popular culture reflects nihilism and death. It broadly presents the idea that life has no meaning — and that the only rational response to the world is to engage in the most selfish and cynical pursuit of pleasure that’s possible. The culture sends the message, “Life has no purpose; get over it.” And if you have children, this message is going to be pushed on them over and over by popular culture.

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Are you living the life you wanted when everything seemed possible?

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I doubt anybody grows up wanting to be a garbage man. Or an accountant. Or a medical billing coder.

There might be a few. Maybe some kids thought riding on a garbage truck was the coolest thing they had ever seen. Maybe some math-obsessed kids thought it would be amazing to spend all day running numbers through spreadsheets.

When we were kids, most of us had things we thought we wanted to do when we grew up, even if many of those things were impractical. When I was very young, I wanted to be captain of a starship, just like my only hero, Capt. James T. Kirk. In an era of frequent rocket launches and trips to the moon, it seemed possible to me.

Then I wanted to be an engineer and inventor. I’ve told you about these before. I progressed through law and ministry and several other things. I was certain that I would one day be president of the United States. I was incredibly excited about my future. I wanted to do and be everything. I was going to change the world.

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