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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Until you ask the right questions, you’ll never find missing answers

By David McElroy · September 13, 2018

Most people are addicted to their pain and their drama. If you offer them a way out — even if they ask for one — they will almost certainly ignore it. They have too much invested in the dysfunctional narrative which they believe is reality.

That kind of dysfunctional narrative can’t survive tough questions, though, so humans avoid those hard questions.

That means your root assumptions about yourself and your life are almost never examined. You are too invested in justifying your old decisions and protecting yourself from imagined dangers that you go right along living out the same old mistakes and experiencing the same pain, frequently to the point you have to become numb to survive.

Even if you believe you need change, you find excuse after excuse to keep living as you always have. You say you’ll change your life, but before you know it, the weeks turn to months and the months turn to years. By then, your life is so far down a miserable road that you convince yourself it “isn’t that bad” — because you know there’s no way out.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: answers, change, emotional health, psychology, questions

If you beg someone to make you his priority, you hurt yourself

By David McElroy · September 10, 2018

The last time I had seen Amanda, she had been happy. She started dating a new guy a couple of months ago and she was happy. But when I saw her Monday evening, she was down and I asked her why.

Her new boyfriend works out of town and spends about half his time on the road for periods of 10 to 14 days. This pattern made the relationship difficult, but she confessed tonight that the real problem is that he seems more interested in spending time with his other friends than with her. He had just come back to town Thursday and was leaving again this morning. He spent the weekend hanging out with his friends — and mostly ignoring her.

“How can I get him to spend more time with me,” Amanda asked me in frustration. “He says he loves me, but when he has time, I’m his last priority. How can I make him care more about us?”

In a strange twist of fate, a Facebook friend had tagged me Monday afternoon in some words I had to say on this subject six or seven years ago. I still agreed with what I posted years ago, but I squirmed at how I had been a hypocrite.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: love, psychology, relationships

Brush with high-speed blowout leaves me thinking about death

By David McElroy · September 7, 2018

The technician looked at me as though he had seen a ghost.

“You almost got yourself killed,” he said quietly.

I was almost back to my suburb Friday evening when I had a blowout on I-20 east of Birmingham. I was going faster than the law prefers when I heard a sudden noise that I find hard to describe. That noise immediately turned into a loud rumble. The car was hard to control. I can’t remember exactly what I did, but once I regained full control, I was on the exit to my neighborhood.

My regular car repair place was already closed, so I pulled into the Walmart auto center. An hour later, I was facing the technician who had pulled the tire off the car. He wanted to show me the hole in my tire — and he wanted to know how I had avoided losing control and killing myself.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: death, life, mortality, psychology

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This was the sunset that faced me as I left Walmar This was the sunset that faced me as I left Walmart near my house just a few minutes ago. It was a beautiful light show for just a few minutes.
Here’s proof that reality and satire are indisting Here’s proof that reality and satire are indistinguishable these days.
This was the sunset I saw from the parking lot out This was the sunset I saw from the parking lot outside of the Walmart near my house just after the sun went down Friday evening.
This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy gas a little while ago. Even at a no-name brand, the price was $4.09. If I remember correctly, it was $2.29 a gallon at the same station on the day the war started. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of winning. 🤣
For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, check out the sponsor of one of my upcoming YouTube video episodes. 🙃 #parody #threestooges
Have you felt as though you’re living through Grou Have you felt as though you’re living through Groundhog Day lately? Me, too. Here’s a quick-and-dirty political satire I made this evening for fun and stress relief.
About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color is poking through the skies to the east of my back yard.
The lights and color might have been more spectacu The lights and color might have been more spectacular a couple of minutes before this, but this was the best view I had of the Monday afternoon sunset from a bridge over I-20 in Moody, Ala.
I just remembered this shot I got a couple of hour I just remembered this shot I got a couple of hours ago of the fading sunset while I was in the Publix parking lot on the way home. If you suddenly find yourself craving Arby’s or Wendy’s, blame the giant icons in the sky, not me. 😃 (BTW, this was with the iPhone’s 8X telephoto lens.) #nature #naturephotography #sunset #birmingham #alabama
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I’m about to have to take a brief trip — maybe 15 I’m about to have to take a brief trip — maybe 15 minutes — after midnight and this is the sort of trip that Lucy used to take with me all the time. Because I’m missing her tonight — and thinking about her because she would be coming along with me right now if she were still with me — here’s a random video clip of her enjoying a car ride. This was May 5, 2020, at 7:36 p.m. It’s been almost eight months now since I lost her.
I’ve solved the mystery of what really happened to I’ve solved the mystery of what really happened to the Reflecting Pool in D.C. I shouldn’t let these guys out of the house. 😺
Alex would like to announce that he has been awake Alex would like to announce that he has been awake for nearly seven minutes and now requires another nap.
Late Sunday night, Sam is on his back in my lap. T Late Sunday night, Sam is on his back in my lap. There’s no way he would have done this a few months ago, much less a year ago. Sam would still rather be left alone, but if I pick him up, he eventually relaxes and enjoys the attention. That’s been nice to watch happen.
Oliver sees remarkably little reason to get out of Oliver sees remarkably little reason to get out of his bed this afternoon.
This is what happens when you take a picture of a This is what happens when you take a picture of a black cat against a black t-shirt in a room that’s almost completely dark. It’s pretty heavy on the black.
When Alex suddenly plops down on his side dramatic When Alex suddenly plops down on his side dramatically and starts purring loudly, it’s his signal that I am expected to come pet him right now. 
Oliver spent the rainy afternoon keeping an eye on Oliver spent the rainy afternoon keeping an eye on the neighborhood and pretending he wasn’t waiting for something interesting to happen.
When I got home around 1 a.m., Oliver just wanted When I got home around 1 a.m., Oliver just wanted to hang out with me for a few minutes, so here’s what he looks like chilling on his back. This was as far as I could stretch my arm for the shot, but I was able to barely get all four legs into view.
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Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

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