David McElroy

Tonight I’m gonna break away
Just you wait and see
I’ll never be imprisoned by
A faded memory
— Rusty Young (for Poco), “Crazy Love”

I almost always believe my own lies. I’ve lived inside this mind for long enough to know better. But I still fall for my own clever tricks.

I try not to lie to other people. I was raised to be a good liar, so I certainly know how, but I know it’s wrong. It know it hurts others. I even know it hurts me in the long run. Every now and then, I trap myself into a situation when it’s easier to lie — but I struggle to stay truthful with others. I usually win that moral battle.

I have no scruples about lying to myself, though. The conscience that speaks so loudly when I’m tempted to mislead others completely disappears when it comes to myself. And even though I’m usually insightful enough to suspect when others are lying, I’m a gullible child when it comes to my own lies.

There’s a war that goes on inside me. Different parts of me want different things. Each part of me is certain that he knows what’s best for me. It works that way for you, too, even though you’re convinced there’s one united “you” in there.

And when one part of me wants what it wants — in defiance of everything which the rational parts of me know is best — that part of me lies.

I lie to myself about my feelings. I lie about my future. I lie about money. I lie about what I’m going to eat. But most of all, I lie to myself about love.

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I’ve always liked things that were easy. One of my dark secrets is that I’ve often run from challenges.

What I see now is that the things that were easy — many of which people praised me for — fed my ego and nothing more. The only things I’ve done that still matter to me were those things that were difficult. My ego was inflated when I’ve taken the easy way. I’ve grown in more healthy ways when I’ve forced myself to accomplish things which required a lot of effort.

Taking the path of least resistance is a losing strategy in the long run, for a person or for a society. It makes you lazy. It makes you passive. And it leaves you living a fantasy life which is brittle — a life which falls apart when reality inevitably puts a real challenge in your way.

I’ve been thinking about all this lately as various companies rush to create simulated worlds. To make it simple, I’m going to refer to all of those worlds collectively as the “Metaverse,” which is what Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg calls his version.

Whatever name you use for it, these fake worlds are ultimately unhealthy for individuals and for society. A simulated world is good for only a simulated life. In an increasingly fake and passive world, we need more real-life thinking and participation. We don’t need more digital imitations of life that turn us into passive spectators stuffing our faces with snacks as we wander through a fake world.

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We casually talk about how there can be a “spark“ between a man and a woman. And we talk about how two people can have a “connection.“ Sometimes we speak of physical “attraction.“

We have all sorts of language for it, but in all these cases, we think we’re using figurative words for something which doesn’t physically exist. We don’t think these connections are real things with a tangible presence. We act as though these words are just ways of talking about something which isn’t quite real.

But what if there really is some unknown thing — some force which we can’t see — that can connect two people? What if there really is some sort of invisible spark — an actual thing which we just can’t measure — that passes between two human hearts? And what if the attraction that we speak of is just as real as the physical attraction of a magnet to a complementary magnet?

I’ve experienced these feelings. You probably have, too. For a long time, I accepted all of these descriptions as beautiful metaphors for something which isn’t quite real. But I no longer believe that.

I’ve come to believe that two people can be connected simply because there is something in the essence of each of them which can’t help being connected — in a way they can’t see or explain — to each other. I can’t prove it. I don’t fully understand it. But it’s magic when it happens.

I can react just like the needle of a compass which is invisibly drawn to a magnetic field. Tap or click below to join me as I struggle to talk about this beautiful mystery.

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