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David McElroy

An Alien Sent to Observe the Human Race

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writing

How could a stranger at sunset possibly know what I had to say?

By David McElroy · September 12, 2019

I was so absorbed in the colorful light show in the sky above me that I didn’t notice when a stranger walked up.

“It’s a different work of art every night, isn’t it?” the man asked. And I was startled to realize he was standing about six feet from me, watching the same majestic sunset with the same awe which it inspires in me.

People rarely join me on this hill at sunset. It’s in the middle of an old cemetery, so I guess I’m accustomed to being surrounded by dead people — but they never speak.

“I didn’t hear you walk up,” I said to the stranger. And then we chatted about the beauty in front of us and how it was surprising that so few people paid attention. I reached out to shake his hand and I introduced myself.

“Oh, I know you,” he said. “I’ve been up here with you before. I’m Darryl. I was with you a few months ago when it was so colorful around the water tower.”

I pulled out my iPhone and showed him my Instagram feed. He spotted the picture from July 8 and pointed to it.

“I was here that night,” he said.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: beauty, filmmaking, stranger, sunset, writing

This is my private confessional; the truths I write often scare me

By David McElroy · May 28, 2019

For me, writing is confession. A very private part of me is naked for you to see. I’m vulnerable and embarrassed at times — but what you see if the truth. If you want it.

If you read what I write here, you know a side of me which remains hidden from the rest of the world. Those who work with me have no idea about the things I confess to you. Those who meet me casually anywhere else would never guess about what I have to say here.

When I was young, I was very guarded, because I was afraid about what people might think of me. I wasn’t going to change who I was to suit them, but I was still afraid of their judgment. Slowly, though, that changed. I realized that I could be very open about who I am. Why?

Nobody else is paying attention to the things which I openly share — because they’re too busy being terrified about what people might think of them, too.

And so I engage in therapy here — by telling the truth — secure in the knowledge that almost nobody else will hear. And it makes me wish or hope that there are those among you who will understand and identify with my confession — who will silently say to themselves, “That’s the way I feel, too.”

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: confession, emotions, feelings, psychology, writing

What if we’re more talented than our inner fears allow us to admit?

By David McElroy · May 16, 2019

I’ve always been terrified to believe I’m talented.

It was easy to believe I was smart. School work came easily, so my grades were good. Everybody told me I was smart. I had objective measures that showed I performed better than other people.

But talent was a much scarier issue. I could take IQ tests or other standardized tests which seemed to prove I was bright. But there were no tests for talent. No matter what I did, I was always terrified that it wasn’t good enough. Even though other people told me they loved the creative work I did, I was scared to get my hopes up.

So I lied to myself. Maybe you do, too.

Writer V.S. Naipaul famously wrote, “The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.” And my self-deception about my talent has held me back time and time again.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: art, fear, photography, psychology, talent, writing

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Instagram post 2191099055338434111_166421 The sky was beautiful behind my office as I left work Tuesday evening. #nature #naturephotography #sky #clouds #colorful #sunset #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2189615458475600868_166421 There were no clouds to speak of tonight, so sunset was just a background glow on the horizon. #nature #naturephotography #golden #sky #sunset #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2187444775385739288_166421 Here’s the sunset on the evening of Thanksgiving. This is from a cemetery near my house. #nature #naturephotography #colorful #sky #clouds #sunset#cemetery #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2187425700773221736_166421 I should have a sunset photo from the camera to post in a few minutes, but here’s a video from the phone to give you an idea of what it felt like. #nature #sunset #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2185257993734975635_166421 Here’s the color I’m seeing from the fading sunset as I drive away from work Monday afternoon.
Instagram post 2184583878711638339_166421 We still have a mixture of colors on our trees in this part of the South. There are reds and golds, but those are also mixed with the lingering green of some trees, such as this one in my front yard. #nature #naturephotography #trees #color #autumn #autumnleaves #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2180909597389677040_166421 Right at sunset, I caught a bit of color in the clouds over the cell phone tower behind our office. #tower #nature #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2180186100627610811_166421 This dramatic sky looks even more dramatic through the bare trees. This scene is less than a block from my office right now. #nature #naturephotography #trees #silhouette #colorful #sky #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2179467475658718259_166421 And here’s a broader view of the sunset in the previous picture from late Sunday evening. #nature #naturephotography #sky #clouds #colorful #sunset #birmingham #alabama
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Instagram post 2193509318899649637_1489647434 Lucy is less than fascinated with the economics videos that her human has been watching late Friday night, but she hasn’t gone to sleep yet. #dog #dogs #dogstagram #dogsofinstagram #cute #cutedog #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instadog #ilovedogs #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2193471491403075330_1489647434 Molly is using her secret psychic powers to suggest to her human that perhaps we should turn the lights off and go to sleep for the night. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #greeneyes #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama #caturdayeve
Instagram post 2193371656834411405_1489647434 Thomas hides in the dark shadows under his human’s desk Friday night. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama #caturdayeve
Instagram post 2192755370014264379_1489647434 Just 15 minutes ago, Lucy was wide awake and eager for more adventures. Now, she’s like a wind-up toy whose spring has run all the way down. #dog #dogs #dogstagram #dogsofinstagram #cute #cutedog #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instadog #ilovedogs #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2192747037819416415_1489647434 Lucy just got back from her final walk of the night, but she’s not entirely ready for sleep yet. #dog #dogs #dogstagram #dogsofinstagram #cute #cutedog #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instadog #ilovedogs #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2192687479214451932_1489647434 King Merlin is in his castle and all is safe with the world. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #merlin2020 #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2192347597447251939_1489647434 Late Thursday morning, Merlin is taking his neighborhood watch duties quite seriously. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #merlin2020 #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2191961246591866493_1489647434 Molly tried to wake up enough to see what was going on, but only one of her eyes got fully open before she fell back to sleep. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #greeneyes #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
Instagram post 2191628989288974024_1489647434 Merlin sleeps in the warm sunshine of an office window late Wednesday morning. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #merlin2020 #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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David likes email, but can’t reply to every message. I get a surprisingly large number of requests for relationship advice — seriously — but time doesn’t permit a response to all of them. (Sorry.)

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Briefly

When I first discovered the idea of unschooling, it was so radical that I had trouble finding people who even knew what it was. Today, the idea is mainstream enough that major media outlets sometimes cover the topic in a favorable way. The Sunday newspaper supplement called Parade had a strongly favorable article about unschooling a couple of weeks ago which explained what it is and how it’s different from homeschooling. It’s less structured. There’s no curriculum. There’s plenty of flexibility. And there are no tests and grades. (Most people today are shocked to learn that testing and grading didn’t exist in schools through history until the last couple hundred years.) If you want your children to think for themselves instead of following the herd mentality that pervades every school I’ve been part of, you owe it to yourself — and to your kids — to consider taking control of your children’s development back from governments. Just because you and I survived institutional schools doesn’t mean it’s the wisest choice. Start by reading the Parade article. It might open your eyes.

In the Birmingham suburb of Hueytown, the Golden Gophers of Hueytown High School had just defeated the Eufala Tigers in the second round of the state playoffs Friday night. It’s not a game that will mean a lot to anybody outside those two communities, but it meant everything to the players and coaches involved. After the game, Hueytown defensive coordinator Trent Campbell was celebrating with his victorious players when he noticed Eufala offensive lineman Dallas Ingram distraught and alone. Campbell left his players to console the distraught Ingram and photographer Dennis Victory caught photos of the pair together. “My reaction was to go see about him, because I’ll see my guys on Sunday and next week and the rest of their high school careers, but that’s a young man we watched on film for a week and studied and he’s a fantastic player,” Campbell said later. “And it wasn’t too long ago when I played my last high school football game and I know what that feeling is and you sort of never forget that. I went to tell him what a great player I thought he was and what a great game I thought they played and I wish nobody had to lose that night because it was an incredible game.” This is what sports at the high school level should be about. Winning is great and winning is fun. But humanity and decency last longer.

I have changed radically about some things over the years, but probably none of those changes have been as great as the ways that I feel about people who are viewed as evil or criminal. When I was young, I was eager to see criminals or foreign political enemies killed. Today, I don’t view such people though rose-colored glasses and I don’t view them as blameless folks who are going to turn their lives around if we just think happy thoughts. But I can’t celebrate the death of anybody, even if he might deserve it in some ways of thinking about it. Even if it’s sometimes necessary to kill someone — and those cases are often debatable — I regret the death of someone who will now never have a chance to discover love and change his life. There are some evil people in this world, but I can’t celebrate their deaths.

There was a time when I was idealistic enough to believe that if a writer expressed his thoughts clearly and simply enough, any bright and honest person would understand his point. I know better now. We all bring so many unconscious assumptions to the things we read that we often see what we expect to see instead of what the writer intended. This is incredibly frustrating to me as a writer, but I’m trying more and more to just say what I need to say — as clearly as I know how — and then ignore the inevitable responses which show that others perceived something which was not intended. I have to write for those who “get” where I’m coming from, not for those who see my words through personal filters that change my meaning. I hope my intentions are clear to you and I hope what I write can be useful to you, but if not, maybe my work just isn’t right for you. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I found out this evening that someone I casually knew killed himself last Wednesday. I didn’t know him well — and I never found him personable — but he had started work a couple of months ago at a restaurant where I go. He was a 26-year-old who struck me as a confused and unhappy person, but I didn’t think much about it since he stayed to himself and resisted my efforts to chat with him. It turns out that he had a history of depression and had a lot of gender confusion. He seemed very androgynous to me and I learned today that he presented himself as female in some situations. He was rejected by a romantic interest last week, so he went to the woods and killed himself. His body wasn’t found for three days. It’s tragic how miserable people around us can be and how we so rarely know the truth about things they struggle with.

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