David McElroy

(Note: You will find a video version of this article here.)

I grew up completely ignorant about art.

I knew art existed, of course. I knew that someone painted the pretty pictures that we stuck on our walls as decorations. I even knew there were “serious” artists out there who created work that they claimed had meaning. I thought they were just pretentious charlatans.

Musical artists? They were just making commercial entertainment. Filmmakers and actors? They were just entertainers, too. And as for sculptors, I didn’t quite understand why anybody would care. It was just more decoration for those with money to waste.

The home and subculture in which I grew up was aggressively steeped in pragmatism and logic, not in meaning and mystical connections to the human spirit. At different times, I wanted to be an engineer, a lawyer and a businessman. Everything was pragmatic. Even my understanding of my Christian faith was firmly rooted in overly rational systematic theology, not in spiritual experience.

It’s taken decades, but art has slowly changed who I am. This spectacular 1936 painting by René Magritte, above, which is called “Clairvoyance,” represents my current understanding of art.

In this painting, Magritte brilliantly expressed the bold notion that a good artist shows us where we’re going before the rest of us can see it.

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I couldn’t get the attention and approval that I needed from my narcissistic father. I craved his attention and approval when I was a child — and I kept craving those things from him as an adult. If someone had suggested this to me 15 years ago, I would have denied it. I just wouldn’t have been able to accept that I still needed the approval that I never got when I was young.

When I was growing up, I received a lot of attention and praise from other people. I was a very high achiever as a child. I did receive attention and approval from many other people over the years for the things I did, but I felt like a fraud — as though I didn’t deserve it — all because he would not give me the approval I was seeking.

Every time I got recognition or praise or awards, I had one eye on him — and I was silently asking whether this one would finally be good enough for him.

This is the next in a series of videos dealing with issues that come up for me to think about as I write a book about my childhood experience of growing up with a narcissistic father. You can visit that YouTube channel to subscribe to future videos. (Liking and subscribing help me quite a bit in reaching others with the videos.) Or you can watch the most recent video below.

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I’ll probably regret recording this, because few people will agree — and most who disagree will misunderstand what I’m saying in an attempt to make sure they don’t have to question what they’ve been taught about “good guys” and “bad guys” in the Middle East.

I’m not asking you to change your mind. I’m just asking that you consider that the truth about war and group slaughter is a lot more complicated than you’ve probably been taught.

You can watch this on my YouTube channel or just watch the copy below.

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