As Hard As I Try

Recently I commented on this post at Change.org about making divorce illegal in Oklahoma. This morning I was thinking about my mom and her somewhat recent denouncement of her faith. And in all of these thoughts, I have, once again, come to realize why I took a vow of celibacy, why I don’t think I want to marry, and ultimately why I find it so terribly and painfully urgent to encourage beauty and love in education. As I’ve quoted before from one of my favorite books Still Life with Woodpecker:

…yes, to make sexual love so secure and same and sanitary, so slick and frolicsome, so casual that it is not a manifestation of love at all, but a near anonymous, near autonomous, hedonistic scratching of a bunny itch, an itch far removed from any direct relation to the feverish enigmas of Life and Death, and a scratching programmed so that it would in no way interfere with the real purpose of human beings in a capitalistic, puritanical society, which is to produce goods and consume them?

Love and beauty are taken so lightly in this country (in this century, even), that marriage seems like the ultimate expression of love. And when people lose that lovin’ feeling, they end it like it was just a bad dream. With all the pressure to be married and to have children, people will settle for less because they think it’s the right thing to do.

It seems people do not value love and beauty like they value science and economics. Without appreciation for love and beauty, social structures and individual worth deteriorate. Maybe if we focused a little more on being human, the world may be in better shape. Though I guess that’s a rather large statement to say that love and beauty are human, instead of science and math and economics and politics and other whatnot.

I guess to be fair I’ll end on another quote from Woodpecker:

Humans are the most advanced of mammals – although a case could be made for dolphins – because they seldom grow up….Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.

In conclusion, my thoughts are over the place. I just needed to say these few things. Maybe I need a nap.