David McElroy

Ever since I started this site five and a half years ago, I’ve struggled with the issue of what to do about public comments. I used to allow them — because it seemed like the obvious thing which almost every website does — but I was frustrated with the level of discourse.

I’ve had many interesting and useful comments from people — not all of which I even agree with, but which I found useful to the discussion — but a ridiculous percentage of comments have come from angry people who are simply anonymous cowards causing trouble by screaming at people on the Internet.

Some of the worst offenders have been people I’ve generally liked and even agreed with, but something about anonymous online commenting leads a lot of people to become nasty in ways they’d never be in real life.

For a long time, I put up with that, thinking it was a tradeoff I was willing to make. I slowly became more and more uncomfortable with that tradeoff, though.

Since I’m rarely writing about politics these days, my articles don’t attract the fairly regular vitriol they once did, but I’ve simply reached the point I’m not willing to tolerate any of it. (And, of course, I have also spent a ridiculous amount of time deleting spam comments which you guys have never even seen.)

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Autumn is about death and dying. It’s about clearing away things which are finished — before a period of dormancy and healing can give way to rebirth.

See those yellow leaves which are slowly developing brown spots and shriveling? I’ve been watching those leaves and the ones around them for about seven or eight months.

A limb of a huge tree has a tiny offshoot which hangs near my front porch. Every time I leave the house, I see those leaves. I watched them grow from nothing last spring. As the weather started turning warm and everything in nature started coming alive again, I saw tiny shoots of green that turned into beautiful shade for my yard.

By summer, they were beautifully lush and green. They joined with thousands and thousands of other leaves to form an amazing canopy — seemingly just for me — and they were a delight to see each time I stepped outside and started down my steps.

But this is what they look like Sunday afternoon. Are they already dead? Are they still alive but slowly dying? I don’t know. All I know is that nature dictates that what was once bright green new life has once again gone through a cycle of amazing vibrancy and is now heading toward death.

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For a moment Thursday afternoon, I didn’t even feel like myself. I felt angry because I wanted to control a situation that I couldn’t control.

My anger turned to ugly words. I didn’t lash out very much. It was just a couple of sentences, but I was completely wrong. I had enough sense to realize — even as I was speaking — that I was handling a situation poorly. I walked out before I could say anything more and make things worse.

I went and sat down in a room by myself. I was flooded with a variety of feelings. I was angry, frustrated, hurt and — within a minute of so — ashamed.

It doesn’t matter what the problem was or what caused it. I’ve been thinking ever since then about a terrible pattern that I see in myself every now and then — not often, but more often than I like to admit.

When I am feeling especially needy in the emotional sense, I start to feel the need to be controlling. When I need something emotionally that I can’t get by myself, that turns to frustration and I express my frustration by trying to control others around me. Something about taking control can let me feel less needy — as though I’ve found a way to force my will into reality.

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