I'm so tired of people saying they don't want to get married, that it's meaningless, or superfluous. They are so wrong, so very wrong. Marriage isn't an institution, and it isn't a sacrament, and it's not just a matter of bookkeeping. Marriage is a symbol. Symbols are important, sybols are the basis for our concept of meaning. Our very language is composed of symbols. The way we think, the impressions in our head, are ways of symbolizing things. A symbol is not the meaning, but if the meaning changes, the symbol changes, and vice versa. No two words have the same definition, no two symbols have the same meaning.

Marriage is a symbol, and a true marriage changes you, forever. Divorce them, kill them, disown them or separate from them however you wish, still it alters you forever. Sorcerers would understand, their power derives directly from symbols. Who you are forever changes when you marry, just as every moment in your life alters you in some small way.

The reason there are so many divorces these days is because of the difference between what we are taught and what we wish to believe. All our lives we are raised to believe marriage is a big deal, that it changes everything. In a way, it does, it changes you, but marriage has no effect on your relationship. Marriage is just a symbol, remember, a symbol for the relationship you and he share. The relationship changes everything, marriage just symbolizes that. It doesn't have to be the Christian idea of marriage, any ceremony that confirms your feelings and thoughts for each other applies. Marriages fall apart because in our heads they're a big deal, when they're really just a symbolic confirmation of what already exists. We build all this up in our heads, and so when the ceremony is over, what is really there is still the same, but what we see and hear and experience is different because it's been built up as the most important moment of our life, and we expect everything to change, and so the marriage fails, cause we can't see what's really there. If people understood symbols, we wouldn't have this problem. There is nothing wrong with getting married, it's not here to control you, or to codify love, marriage can be whatever you want it to be, whatever you need it to be. Things fall apart when the symbol and the meaning don't match.

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If any of you are experiencing cognitive dissonance with my claim that I'm not Christian, my belief in taking responsibility for your actions and being yourself, and my failure to tell my mom I'm not Christian, well :), that's unfortunate for you.

It's simple really. It has to do mostly with laziness and general disinterst in complicating my life. It's a hell of a lot easier to go to Chruch once a week than to: a) have this argument with my mom, b) continue to live with my mom having her preaching at me and trying to convert me, and c) dealing with what else she might do, like getting together an intervention or something for me.

See, this way, I can go to Church and quietly seethe, and no one gets hurt. The other way, I'm going to have all these people trying to help me, and I really, really, really hate it when people try to help me, and I guarantee you someone would be hurt badly. I might not kill them, but I'm not sure how alive not dead would be in this case.

...people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won't do if they don't know about it. This explains why it is important to shoot missionaries on sight. --Terry Pratchett

recent...
2001-03-02 - Reality and Lies
2001-03-02 - Wow, this isn't worth reading at all.
2001-02-28 - I think this is stupid.
2001-02-27 - Fuzzy ass dreams.
2001-02-26 - Dreams and poems and stolen songs.