On the Meaninglessness of Marriage

This could equally well be titled Late-night Ramblings of a Disenchanted Young Adult but isn't, mostly because the title I selected is more to the point.

Marriage is not something I have written about extensively before, particularly not here.  This is mostly due to the fact that in the past three or so years, since I've been writing here, my thoughts on the subject have never been rigid enough to put into words.  But they've finally solidified.  Or perhaps it simply seems that way because it's rather late at night.

Marriage means nothing today.  Growing up, it represented in my mind a commitment as permanent as the individuals making it.  It was forever.  It signified selecting someone to spend your life with.  Someone to share the most intimate portions of yourself with.  Someone to grow with.  And it was something that I spent a large portion of my childhood looking forward to.

But something changed.  And I'd love to say that this is a realization that came with age, but it didn't.  It hit me out of the blue today.  And that is that marriage is meaningless.  It doesn't mean anything anymore.  I don't mean that divorce is not frowned upon as much as it once was, and I don't mean that same-sex marriage is infringing on the sanctity of it or anything (for the record, I don't have any problem with same-sex marriage).  I simply mean that who you live with doesn't matter.  A modern-day marriage is an agreement to be roommates with someone.

I think that in this age of technology we have forgotten how to forge intimate connections with those around us.  We are more comfortable with confrontations over the internet.  We text.  We Skype.  We IM.  We hardly ever send full-length emails anymore, not to mention letters.  We don't go for walks or sit down to have conversations.  We are so preoccupied with the people we know on the internet, that we no longer really bother with the people around us.  And that is precisely why marriage doesn't matter.  Because no matter who you choose to live with for the rest of your life, your most important conversations will still take place over the internet.  The things you will look forward to most will all be associated with what someone texted you or put online somewhere.

We are worse at communicating with those in close proximity because we feel no need to use the internet to communicate with them, but we are so fucking absorbed in the world of our electronic devices that we forget to interact with them in meaningful ways.  So the most meaningful relationship isn't going to be a marriage.  It's going to be a long-distance friendship, possibly with someone you have never met.  We are all busy falling in love with the things that people on the internet say, whether we know them or not.

And as we become more and more absorbed in our technologies, as we have internet everywhere and the capability to text wherever and whenever we want, we are going to forget about the people around us unless they follow us into these online worlds we are creating.  Spending your life with someone will mean living in the same house, possibly having children.  No more, no less.  At this rate, it will never be a meaningful relationship, because we are too busy burying ourselves in the internet to notice anything going on in the real world.  And maybe I'm the only one who sees it this way, but I don't like it.  At all.

Anger without Enthusiasm

Am I angry?  No.  Not really.  Not usually.  I'm disappointed, mostly.  Disappointed with myself.  Because maybe everyone was right.  And maybe I deserve better.

But I was right too.  If I deserve better, then it's my own fault.  Because I'm the reason for all of this.  I'm the one letting myself down.  Just as I always have been.

I've done everything in this life that I've promised I wouldn't.  I've let other people do things to me that I said I never would allow.  I've put myself in this corner and now I'm wondering why I can't go anywhere because there really isn't a way back.  It's not as simple as just turning around because you can't undo the past.  Trust me, I've tried.

I would start this paragraph with a dramatic statement.  "I am at a crossroad" comes to mind.  Except that's not the case.  No more than usual.  We are all at crossroads every day, every minute of our lives.  We just don't notice it.  And that's what got me where I am.  I saw a boulder in the path and I turned aside because it made sense to.  And I did it again and again and again until I found myself here, with nowhere left to go.  Because this is it.  There is no way up.  There is only down.  Far, far down.

I've spent my entire life walking away from fights, trying to tone down confrontations.  And in the end I gave.  I gave a little here and a little there, and I compromised some, and then I did it again, until there was nothing left to give and I'd compromised the entirety of myself.  I spent so much time trying to avoid conflict that I turned into one perpetual conflict, myself.

I'm trying to work and all I can think is, "there is no way to go but down."  Is this what a midlife crisis feels like?  Because I'm standing at the edge and staring down into the abyss and there is nowhere to go.  And I know I should have seen it coming, and I know that it was bound to happen eventually, but it's never quite the same.  So even though I know one day it will be over, I'll still feel very different on that day than I do now.

There will be an end.  One day, this will all be over.  And I don't know when, and I don't know how, and I don't know why.  But I know.  I really know.  I am absolutely certain.  And now it finally feels a little bit real.

Silence

Do you ever wonder why we don't talk about it?  I doubt it.  But that's okay, because that would require actually thinking about it.  And I just can't.  By which I mean I can, but only in the odd, brooding way in which my mind considers such things.  And I don't know that I want to talk about it.

I just want you to say something.  Or I want something to happen.  But you've heard everything I have to say on the subject.  So I'll never bring it up.  And I'll avoid pointing conversations in that direction, and it's not because I'm afraid or uncomfortable, but just because it never goes anywhere and I don't think it ever will.

So don't ask.  Do everyone a favor and just don't ask.  It doesn't matter.  It never will, whether I want it to or not.  So whatever.  I know that eventually my life will move on past this subject, and it will be something I look back at and wonder about and maybe even laugh over.  But for now it's just digging deeper into my brain and refusing to show itself.

This is what happens when I'm sleep-deprived and wanting to avoid work.  My brain creates monsters that may or may not be there.  Which is okay, I guess.  They're entertaining on occasion.  But I'll stop now, because I'm awake enough to realize that this makes absolutely no sense.

The Stupid and the Curious

There are two types of people who see things in black and white: the stupid and the curious. The stupid use extremes to define themselves because they're incapable of actual thought. The curious use extremes to find out where everyone else stands when they don't realize they're making a stand.
[Source]

I've been finding a lot of writing on the internet by a number of people that is very important.  To me at least. Because it's something I really relate to.  Or it's something that I feel strongly about.  Or maybe it's just something that resonates with me really deeply for one reason or another.  And I really like that there are people out there, whose blogs I can literally just stumble upon completely on accident who think about things in ways which are similar to mine but also different.  This is the sort of writing that not only makes me want to think about things, but also to write about them, and I think this is wonderful.

Sometime around when I was fifteen, I stopped seeing things in black and white.  I met some people who were...interesting.  I think that's as good a way as any of putting it, because they really were.  It was my first exposure to anything other than my parents' comfortable home.  And even though they never sheltered me, they always made sure I grew up somewhere that was safe, they never made me want to do anything rebellious.  So I didn't know that people around me ever broke rules or did drugs or snuck out at night.  That wasn't a part of my life until I turned fifteen.  And then I met some, as I said, rather interesting individuals.

Even as I was frightened by the concept of breaking all of the rules, I was enthralled by it.  I became fascinated with these people because they quite literally opened up a whole new world for me.  A world in which legality and policy were possibly reasonable guidelines, but did not by any means determine the outcome in every situation.  I learned first to look at both sides of the issue (more so than I was ever taught in  school, certainly), and then I realized that this concept of "sides" is fucking bullshit.  That there is no right and wrong when it comes to people.

And as the years went by, I started trying to understand people better.  Games like Cross the Line, where a (possibly controversial) statement would be made and individuals would step forward over a literal line if they agreed with it or if they felt it applied to them, have fascinated me since the first time I played them.  They force you to say it.  Yes or no.  You don't get a "well, almost, but not quite, because..." option.  Yes.  Or no.  It's an easy way to probe people for what they believe without putting them into the context of an awkward conversation that forces them to reveal deeply personal information, but also an opportunity to start just such a conversation.

I find conversations about many common topics to be boring.  I don't speak much in group settings, as anyone who knows me will confirm.  But as soon as you get me in a room with a single individual who is willing to talk, I can't stop asking questions, trying to understand what dwells in this shell of humanity.  People fascinate me more than anything, and I don't mean the "I was born in ____ and have two sisters and a cat" story.  I mean the things that people are afraid to talk about.  The beliefs they're not even sure of.  And I love challenging them, because I love it when my beliefs are challenged.  I love the stimulating conversation that comes of a well-informed individual who is not stuck in a particular way of thinking, but is also invested enough to question other points of view.

I know this isn't entirely relevant to the quote I posted.  But I don't mind.  It made me think, and I'm very appreciative as a result.  I think it is beautifully worded and extremely insightful, in a way that makes a lot of sense to me but that would not have occurred to me.  And it made me reflect on myself, which is never a bad  thing.  Writing like this gives me hope.  It makes me believe that there are people out there who have grown up, who won't forever be borderline alcoholics barely capable of functioning in a standard job, which is something that I lose faith in remarkably often given my regular surroundings.  So I am glad that there are still insightful, intelligent people out there.  Very, very glad.