David McElroy

I don’t want to change your political views, no matter what you believe.

As long as you vote, I don’t care who you vote for. As long as you want your side to “take back the country” from “those people,” I don’t have much to say about it. I might agree with you that “those people” are evil for controlling everyone, but that doesn’t mean I approve of your side, either.

There was a time when I wanted to lead this country — through political power — and make the changes that I believed were right. I volunteered in political campaigns. Then I spent years as a highly paid political consultant. I assumed that change should happen through this electoral system.

In my more naive political days, I thought “the people” would follow me when I showed them what was right. Then in my more realistic period — as a political professional — I understood that campaigns were merely about making voters believe that my candidate was on their side. For reasons that I’ve explained many times, I came to understand that this system was immoral — because it was based on forcing one group to obey another group.

Today, I know that partisan politics doesn’t matter. As evil as politics can be — and as much as I detest the narcissists on both mainstream sides who impose their will on us — I understand they’re equally wrong.

I don’t want to change people’s politics anymore. Instead, I want to cause people to examine their assumptions about human life and society. I want to create art and other works that will entice people to look at their unexamined assumptions and say, “I’d never thought about that in this way before. What if I’ve been wrong?”

I want to quietly invite you to discover a new way of thinking — a way that will make all of your old political ideas seem irrelevant and obsolete.

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I’ve been treading water in my life — not sure which way to go — for roughly a decade.

If you’ve read what I’ve said lately, you know that I’m ready to finally change that. In some audio last week, I explained why I have to stop trying to be what other people might want me to be. A few days ago, I shared with you the specifics of a couple of short films I’m working on, even though they scare me.

But I’m still paralyzed by fear of taking steps that could close off certain choices forever. There are a dozen doors through which I could go right now. Probably many more than that. But choosing one of those doors will close some of the other doors forever.

I’m afraid of making the wrong choices. I’m afraid of choosing a path that will take me somewhere that doesn’t match the needs of whoever I might marry in the future. What if my choice takes me away from someone I love?

I feel as though I have only one more chance to get things right insofar as having a wife and family. I don’t want to blow my chance.

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I hadn’t heard from Grace for several years and her email today surprised me. She and I dated briefly, but we hadn’t stayed in touch. Her message wasn’t long — and she didn’t seem to really want anything special — but one section really struck me.

“I’m turning 31 next week and I feel so old,” she wrote. “It was hard when I turned 30 last year and I didn’t think I’d feel this way again this year, but I do. I hate feeling this old, like everybody knows I’m not young and pretty anymore. I’m not sure what I expected, but life doesn’t turn out like I thought it would.”

This was the second time in the last month that I’d heard a woman express uneasiness about celebrating a birthday. That left me thinking again about how we see youth and age and wisdom and beauty in modern culture.

Our culture has a lot of things backwards when it comes to values, but this one seems especially dangerous. Cultures used to teach their people to give value and respect to age and wisdom, but as images have come to dominate western culture, we have reversed everything.

We glorify youthful appearance in ways never known in human history — and we’re eager to write off the wisdom of those who have finally experienced enough of life to have insight and understanding.

Our warped cultural programming leaves us scared of what we see in our faces when we look into mirrors. And it leaves us yearning for the younger years of our lives — when we were the most ignorant and foolhardy.

These warped cultural values are making a lot of individuals miserable today.

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