Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Mind-boggling Enlightenment



Seriously?



Search anywhere for inspiration if you have time.  I have a lot of time lately.  My spouse is in a rehab hospital, and I get amazing things done in short order without him here to criticize me, or without me delaying a project for fear he will criticize.  So I have many more hours in the day when I feel guilt free and can spend some of my time on leisure or self-gratifying pursuits.  Plus, I haven't written or blogged in at least a month or so, so that also contributed to the  plethora of extra minutes in my endless days.

I was perusing Cracked.  (Cracked.com is a very valuable resource and the home of my highly touted and publicized Smurf remark, so I promote them constantly and visit them regularly.)  I honestly cannot even imagine what the subject of the actual article was, but it linked to a whole bunch of articles on whether or not a male could be monogamous.

There are two clearly defined schools of thought.  Scientists say we are biologically programmed to be monogamous (marker proteins on the surface of the ovum, etc.) in order to preserve the integrity of the gene pool.  I love to hear about this stuff, but considering the fact that the epigenetic train is roaring through civilization like a run away, I myself would not argue that that particular theory may need to be trashed.  I have a relative who works in the genetics lab at Duke.  Too bad I am not on speaking terms with him.

Anyway the other school of thought is that a male cannot be monogamous.  He is genetically programmed to spread his seed in order that the fittest of the fit may rise to the top and rule the world.  Actually, someone needs to back down on that concept a little cuz the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and the fittest of the fit, the cream of the crop, is playing video games or getting advice on how to proceed in life from bozos.  I will not go off on a political tangent here.  I promise.

So in one of the comments to one of the articles I was so busily consuming, a male, in retort to someone who would not even consider fidelity or monogamy, stated clearly that you should marry someone because you love them,and not for their vagina.

I was thunderstruck.  I am really old. I have been married really long.  Such a theorem never entered my mind.  If you read my fiction, you know my philosophy is strongly canted away from that idea.  I never considered it.  If I had waited until I met someone I was sure I was in love with (at the age of 19) I would not be married, even today.  I have always thought that love kind of grew.  Like I think I love my irritating husband.  But the way I feel was not present when I was nineteen.  I was in such a place that thinking didn't really have much to do with it.  I feel that the guy that wrote that comment is a rare bird.  Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am so inordinately shallow, as my fiction reviewers attest, that my personal value system is beyond the ken of most of the rest of humanity.  Lust ruled.  It blinded me.  It does that.  I guess it would be swell to be one of those people who thinks about living with someone for the rest of their life in that way.  But it ain't me.  It ain't me your looking for, babe.  Wasn't then.  Isn't now.

I wonder if that is a product of my upbringing or what other factors may have made me that kind of person.   I am surprised I have not been shot down in the streets or back alleys long ago.  Really I am.

Weigh in, won't you?  I maybe able to squeeze a revision of Outside Plumbing out of this. I will credit you.  I do that.

Photo attribution:  www.ievolve.org