July 04, 2009
Happy Independence Day!
July 01, 2009
Bisexual Species
June 29, 2009
Why Get Married?
Since Jason’s and my wedding is coming up in less than two weeks now, I thought it might be interesting to write something about why I think that marriage, in general, is something worthwhile. After all, it might seem that the most rational approach to romantic relationships would be to simply live with someone one loved for as long as living with that person brought joy to one’s life. Then, if the relationship became less valuable over time, one would be free to pursue a more valuable and meaningful one. Further, it seems that a person who is genuinely committed to self-actualization would benefit more from multiple partners over her lifetime because she would gain more opportunities to learn things about herself as the number of people with whom she had lived increased.
A common reason that people decide to get married in the face of these reasons not to do so is that they believe that they are somehow destined to be together; that each of them is “the one” for the other. However, since I don’t believe that there’s anyone out there coming up with little destinies for everyone, I also don’t think that it is impossible that there might be someone somewhere in the world who might make a better spouse for me than Jason, although certainly I think it’s extremely unlikely that I’ll ever meet anyone else who is as right for me as he is. So why am I willing to bind myself for life to just one person?
I think that part of the value of a lifelong commitment to someone one loves is that it transforms life from a solitary journey into a true partnership. Instead of being on her own in the world, a person who is married has someone who will always be there as a source of support, encouragement and challenge, someone with whom she will make the most important decisions of her life and someone with whom she will both celebrate her triumphs and find encouragement when she encounters adversity. As long as the two people in a marriage share the same overall goals in life, they can be each other’s greatest source of strength and achieve more together than they could have achieved alone.
Another part of the value of a lifelong commitment is that there are levels of intimacy that can only be experienced by people who have known each other for many years and who have promised to live out their lives together. Knowing that one’s spouse will be there for life allows one to bare one’s soul in a way that might otherwise be difficult, whether in sexual situations or simply in conversation about one’s greatest wishes and fears. Anyone who chose to have many short-term relationships instead of getting married (or anyone who didn’t have the opportunity to form a good marriage because she never met a suitable person) would never be able to achieve this level of intimacy.
Of course, the most obvious value of getting married is that it allows me to spend the rest of my days with Jason, which is something that I badly want to do because I am much happier with him than I am without him. Being separated is terrible, and marriage is a way of promising not to ever let that happen. Without the experience of joy in the presence of the person one is marrying, the rest of the value of marriage would obviously be unattainable. In other words, marriage only works if you’re marrying someone you love.
But even if a lifelong commitment is valuable, why does that mean that this commitment has to occur in the form of a public ceremony followed by a big, expensive party? After all, couldn’t Jason and I achieve all of the above values by simply promising to stay together for life one afternoon in our backyard? I think that we probably could achieve most of the value of marriage through a private promise, but I also think that there is additional value in the very publicness of the commitment that we’ll make in front of our friends and family. Our wedding ceremony and the rings we will wear afterward will be our way of telling the world that we are together and we mean it, that the two of us are a family, and that our lives are centered around each other. The people who witness our commitment will hopefully become people who support it when we encounter challenges in our relationship, and anyone who sees us afterward will know by our rings that we are not available. Instead of being a private promise that will be known only to us and those whom we tell, our marriage will be a matter of public record, supported by our government. Rather than being two people who promised fidelity to each other, we will be a legal unit. Having our commitment recognized by our government, those who witness our marriage and everyone we meet afterward will help to strengthen it, thereby increasing the likelihood that we will achieve the values that a successful lifelong commitment can bring.
June 28, 2009
Amazon's Toys
June 22, 2009
My Life
As I die,
I want to be able to look back on my life,
And say,
My life was its own reason for being.
I want,
To know that every breath had a purpose
And that
The purpose was self-chosen and self-consecrated.
Never,
Shall my life be a means to another’s ends,
To be
Used and discarded for their purposes.
My life,
My beautiful, precious life, is mine alone.
It is,
All that I am, and I will make it great.
June 21, 2009
mr. deity
June 17, 2009
Objectivism and Sexuality
“Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive
and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life.
Show me the woman he sleeps with
and I will tell you his valuation of himself."
~Ayn Rand
In order to understand why Ayn Rand thought this, and why she is right about it, we need to first understand how sexual attraction works. For too long sex has been thought to be impervious to reason and completely outside the province of our understanding. Happily, however, this is not the case. In this essay we are going to endeavor to understand the nature of sexuality and its operation. By the time we conclude our analysis, we shall be able to fully understand why Ayn Rand thought that one could discern a man’s entire philosophy from his sexual attractions and activities.
June 16, 2009
Recovering Religionists
If you are one of the millions of people who have determined that religion no longer has a place in your life, this may be the right spot for you. Many people love the social support they get from religion, but can’t deal with all the crazy ideas they are required to espouse. It can be difficult to leave a religion because family and culture put so much pressure on us to stay and pretend to believe. If this is you, we want to help you find your way out. We are Recovering Religionists™, people who have given religion our best shot but just can’t bring ourselves to believe in virgin births, resurrections, 2000 year old miracles and the “power of prayer.” We are recovering Baptists, Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah Wittnesses, Hindus, Moslems, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, and more.
Leaving religion is full of potential problems, both emotional and practical. How do you tell your elderly parents? How does it affect your marriage? How do you break the news to your religious friends and what if it disrupts the friendship? How to deal with child rearing issues? Who can I talk to about my feelings without being told, “You just need more faith.” Like you just need to be a little more gullible. Recovering from Religion talks about all these and more. If getting out of religion is your concern, RR can probably help.
June 15, 2009
Evolving Planet
June 10, 2009
Responses to the Ideal
by Megan
There are two common ways to respond to portrayals or actualizations of the ideal in some area of human endeavor: we can either be intimidated, or inspired. For example, an amateur runner might see a professional athlete run at a speed that is far beyond the amateur’s abilities and react by feeling despondent about her own running skills, perhaps even resenting the professional runner for making her feel bad about herself. Or, the amateur runner could respond by admiring the professional runner and using the image of the professional runner to inspire her to push herself harder in her own workouts. Certainly the second reaction seems much healthier and more productive than the first.
Unfortunately, most people in the U.S. seem to be intimidated rather than inspired when they encounter portrayals and actualizations of the ideal. Any literature, film or advertisement that portrays an idealized person or character is quickly condemned as unrealistic and even oppressive because it negatively affects the self esteem of people who think they could never rise up to that level of excellence. When computer programs are used to idealize the bodies of models, for example, people respond with anger because they feel that young women and men will feel inadequate when they compare themselves to those models. (Of course, in some cases the supposed “ideal” that is portrayed is not a healthy body, which means it is not really an ideal.) When heroes or even just people who more or less have their lives together are portrayed in film, they are condemned as unrealistic, while the characters who bumble around failing at simple tasks and succeeding only by luck are considered realistic and therefore better. Similarly, people in workplaces and schools who seem to be happy and in control of their lives are resented for being “too perfect,” and others spend time trying to prove that the “perfect” people have flaws so that they no longer have to think about an intimidating ideal.
What is behind this cultural impulse to be intimidated rather than inspired by portrayals and actualizations of the ideal? I think that it is a combination of a lack of confidence in our own abilities and a lack of interest in achieving good things. Moving oneself closer to an ideal in any area of endeavor is no quick or easy process; it requires a lot of hard work and dedication, which many people are unwilling to choose instead of spending yet another evening sitting in front of the television. Further, some people are just satisfied with getting themselves through the day, and whether or not they have achieved anything of significance is not important to them. When the ideal is something that one is uninterested in achieving or too lazy to achieve, its presence or portrayal serves as a painful reminder that there is more in life to be achieved than one has presently gained. Therefore, one resents the ideal for being so much better than oneself.
If you find yourself intimidated by the portrayal of a genuine ideal, ask yourself why that ideal intimidates you. Is it something that you want to achieve, but you think you cannot? Are you too lazy to expend the effort to achieve ideals, or have you given up on achievement entirely in favor of the path of least resistance? Only when we ask ourselves these difficult questions can we become healthy people who are inspired to take one step closer to achieving our ideals when we encounter others who are brave and dedicated enough to achieve their own.
