Friday, April 26, 2002 :::
Look Honey, We're Not Such Losers After All
Last night on Primetime or Dateline (or one of their high-gloss, over-dramatized, constantly-claiming-responsibility-for-enacting-social-change equivalents) I saw an interesting look at two married couples who allowed their lives (arguments) to be videotaped so that it might help fellow married Americans everywhere realize that marriage is hard work and they are not alone. Normally I would continue down the list of my finite number of available channels in search of Mexican Soap Opera or Mexican Game Shows...or anything Mexican really, but seeing that I am less than three months away from my own marriage, I thought I would watch and hopefully learn something on the way.
The lesson I learned: people who don't like each other should not be married. People who don't trust each other should not be married. People who have let time and life change them into unlike and incompatible people should not be married. People who have different goals, sex drives, passions, prejudices, fantasies, and baseball teams should not be married. Time and time again these people would fight and time and time again they would flee only to regroup and reenergize for the next fight. And every fight had to do with the same issue...they didn't love the same things.
It was about 15 minutes into this when I realized that the purpose of the study was not to teach me or instill in me better skills to cope with the argumentative nature of male-female relationships. All of it, the grainy fly-on-the-wall video footage, the seemingly compassionate and renowned psychologist, and the interviews with the participants watching their willing destruction of their marriage on a 20" television...all of it was intended to make Mr. and Mrs. Television-Americana - who live perpetual denial about the troubles of their own marriages- feel better. It was a device to throw the spotlight of dysfunctionality on someone else and as a result Mr. and Mrs. Television-Americana feel better about themselves.
Most people are cowards who fear change and will endure the brunt of a hogshit hailstorm if it means not having to face change, even if the change would be the best thing for them. That was the biggest lesson of the program.
::: posted by Mike at 2:37 PM
Tuesday, April 09, 2002 :::
A Lesson From My Toothpaste
I always buy my toothpaste ahead of the need curve, meaning before I am folding, pushing, squeezing, and forcing the last little bit of toothpaste out of the tube, I already have a brand new one on stand-by ready for action in the war against funk. The other morning I did that thing that I do right before I get to the end...I reached for the new tube. I wasn't out of toothpaste in the old tube, in fact, using rough math I figured I had at least 2 or 3 days of proper dental hygiene left in the tube...but I reached for the new one. Something inside the reflexive center of my brain told me to grab the new one because the new one was, well, NEW and NEW is better.
This is not strictly limited to toothpaste, mind you. It also goes for gallons of milk, bottles of beer, sexual partners, foreign policy, and re-runs of the A-Team. We like the newer one better, even if there is still life and legs left in the old one. It's not because of advertisements that promise new things or improved things, it is not because there is anything to indicate that the newer is better, it is just that thing in our heads that says we need the new thing because we had the old thing and our life would be better, more livable, or more complete if we fill it with new things. This transcends morning/evening rituals and assorted toiletries; it’s about being human.
I think it takes a stronger person to finish one tube before starting another. Maybe not happier, or more fulfilled, just stronger.
::: posted by Mike at 3:34 PM
