Guest Blog: Whats The Deal With Marriage, Am I Right Everyone?

 One thing that defines a person is the company they keep.  Its part of the reason economic status often perpetuates itself, part of the reason the Wu Tang Clan is so badass, and the entire reason all clowns are serial killers.  Today I have my good friend David Zafra (who has a pretty dope blog of his own where he discusses film through the lens of philosophy) talk about marriage; specifically, what is wrong with it.  Considering I was the officiant for his wedding, I take partial blame for whatever goes wrong here.

DISCLAIMER:  The totally baller views contained within this article do not necessarily reflect my own.

I read a couple of marriage articles by John Cheese very recently that got me thinking about a couple of things. Thinking about stuff is my strong suit and that's why David picked me from the mass of writing warriors to uphold the glory of his blog. Even though most of this is references to cracked articles. Anyways, here's some of the things I've noticed recently about marriage, but mostly weddings. I'm also a guy, so I may be a little biased... but seriously...

Women ruin marriage

Damn TV sitcoms and movies for creating the image of how wedding planning is "supposed" to be! Everything  from the tiny details (color of napkins) to the actual celebration. You cause your self so much unnecessary heartache, you think you just started taking Tae Kwon Do classes. 

One day this will work on a criminal!

Everyone tells you that your wedding day is a day you're never going to forget, and girls use that motivation to drive the event like a Brock Lesnar fight. Everyone says its going to be awesome, so it must be worth spending all this money promoting him and putting him on the Undisputed cover... because he's the best. But everyone loses track of what marriage was supposed to be all about. Love, right? Well, that's what so many naive young men think, right till the point that their significant others are metaphorically putting a gun to their heads, so we agree to dropping thousands on a location.

I was lucky to have a pretty cheap wedding in comparison to so many people. However, at one point a girl is so in love with her guy that she is willing to marry him in a potato sack dress in a corn field. Men hear this and jump all over it.... but then the truth comes out. Entire shows are dedicated to this idea and guys see it and get scared. I can't blame women completely for that, because it's the way things are spread in our society. I already mentioned this idea about the "perfect day that nobody will ever forget", but perfection is the bane of plans. When you are reflecting on life you won't be thinking about weddings. Like 127 Hours, you'll be thinking about the simple things... and probably the greatest time you got laid.

Parents Ruin Marriage

Your significant other's parents used to be people that you would only have deal with at dinner on the holidays. But when the relationship gets serious you suddenly have to live up to the standards they created. Maybe you don't have enough money, or seem responsible enough, or you're ethnic and your parent-in-law are white.

"I should really hide the silverware"

None of that usually matters until things get serious. Then the wedding planning starts, and you hear everyone say "this is THEIR day", even though you will trying to please everyone all the time. And this can be worse, depending on how close your spouse is to their families. With close families you have even more evasiveness's, so you'll be lucky if your fiance sides with you on the issues.

In the case of my wedding our families didn't like each other, and that stated a whole new set of problems.

But even if your families get along great, the parents love you, and you love them, you still cant avoid the peers.

Peers Ruin Marriage

The same bullshit I'm complaining about you probably heard a million times from friends, or co-workers, or people who watch a lot of sitcoms.  Its hard to avoid it, especially as a guy, you get the constant  cliche's about never having sex again, life is over, shes gonna be your boss, etc. I used to get scared because they said I'd never win an argument again. To me, that was as scary as a Christian watching Y Tu Mama Tambien.

I'm so miserable!

For guys that actually WANT to be married, several things probably happened in the process to make living less miserable. For some guys (me), it's not like you were having some crazy awesome life beforehand that you were throwing away. For other guys (romantics), this is something that you really want. I know a couple of guys who can't wait to start having kids and settling down. There's a lot of good things about being married, but it goes beyond that.

Just look at this quote quote from Newsweek

  "75... The Percent of 18- to 34-year-old men who believe that marriage is a necessary institution they'll engage in, versus 63 percent of women".

And...

"71= Percentage of 18- to 34-year-old men who believe in soul mates, versus 68 percent of women".

It's a weird trend in our society when the most outspoken group is also the one that perpetuates the trend. It's like Republicans who get caught doing gay things in bathroom stalls. However, we're talking about a much deeper problem here because women, parents and peers are all basing these ideas on what marriage is "supposed to be". So the biggest ruiner of marriage is....

Our ideals of marriage

I get a lot of heat for not being the typical "married guy". I don't wear a ring, I don't believe in a lot of the rules of the ritual, and I don't speak about my marriage with certainty.  That is, if someone says something along the lines of "how do you feel about knowing that you will be stuck with the same woman forever", I tell them that shit could happen to prevent that.  I don't think anything bad will happen at the moment, but this is America after all. I'll get into that some more later, but let me finish this concept of uncertainty.  To an existentialist, the lack of certainty doesn't mean anything.

Marriage is really like an extensive lease on an apartment. Sure you can get out of it at any time, but it's going to be much more expensive, and your landlord sort of knows that, so you both try to play nice to avoid a messy breakup. In this metaphor the lease is the marriage certificate, but all contracts can be broken. You are really signing an agreement to deal with this persons bullshit, but they're like family now so you have to deal with it regardless (South Park talked about this a little bit in an episode where Stan's parents were getting divorced).  

This may not be the romantic idea that you are signing up for, but the standard idea of love is doing a poor job when you stand it next to arranged marriage. These people live much happier than the free will married people of America. Anybody who is madly in love right now will say that they will stick around through thick and thin. Many of those people won't make it though. There's an article on BBC that talks about how middle class Indians that have started to give up on arranged marriages and increased the divorce rates 100%. I'm not saying that we need to switch to arranged marriage, only that the ideals that we created aren't the best, and a lot of that comes from the ideas given to us by TV and movies.

Boy do I hate sitcom wives like Elliot Reed and Monica Bing for teaching everyone how marriages are "supposed to be". I know guys can suck,  but women aren't prefect either. Far from it, they are pretty horrible. So why sitcoms choose to portray this image of a "crazy wife that guys have to accept despite the craziness" is far from my understanding. It basically means you don't have to change at all; Even if you're crazy, immoral and probably have a severe case of OCD.

Don't let the looks fool you, she's a total bitch.

But this idea of crazy woman that you are supposed to love anyways isn't really the most healthy way of going about a relationship. Nor is the idea of your wife being in charge, instead of being a partner. Sexless marriage is not usually a sign of a good relationship either. Yet these are the idea that we perpetuate in our society. It's almost as if these shows and movies were unrealistic.  

A Short Intro To The EZLN/Zapatistas

Everyone knows that education is most important, especially when its for the children.  In the past I wrote an article explaining Nietzsche in an effort to edutain the masses.  Today I figured I’d go write an article about a much more revolutionary and dangerous topic.  No, not Toyotathon or the secret to destroying Newt Gingrich (though heres a hint: reading a holy text like the Bible or Quran at him never works, as they only burst into flames when he gets near).  Today I will be talking about the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN), also known as the Zapatistas.

The Zapatistas base their name on Emiliano Zapata, a significant figure in the Mexican Revolution.  The Mexican Revolution started in 1910, with a Constitution being signed in 1917 and the worst of the fighting ending in 1920 (though there was plenty of death and murder to go around during the 1920s as well).  Emiliano Zapata was a revolutionary general who advocated peasant and indigenous rights, specifically land reform.  At the time, large land estates (haciendas) were operating in much the same way Jon Jones does now in the UFC: ruthlessly taking shit over and destroying those who stood in the way.

 Are you seeing a pattern here?  With great mustaches come great historical legacy.

During the war Zapata rose to prominence and turned out to be a damn good general.  He made alliances with opposition figures like Francisco Madero and Venustiano Carranza, until these same people came into power and decided they would sell out.  Zapata wasn’t the type to sit around crying about how these leaders used to be cool until they were mainstream, though.  He instead continued fighting, since the power structure’s idea of diplomacy was as full of violence and spite as a carnival worker’s imagination.  The power structure just couldn’t finish him, though, so they decided on a plan so vile that even Monsanto would-  haha, never mind actually, they’d be too busy drinking orphan blood to feign the moral high ground.

In 1919, General Pablo Gonzalez had his Lieutenant Jesus Guajardo feign defecting to Zapata’s forces and, in order to make it appear sincere, they staged an attack that resulted in 57 people of their own people dead.  He then invited Zapata to a meeting with him to talk about joining forces.  On April 10, 1919, Zapata showed up and was gunned down by Guajardo’s men in what historians classify as “one of the biggest dick moves of all time.”  It was the kind of villainy you would see in a movie and roll your eyes at.

After his death, however, Zapata became a symbol for indigenous, peasant, and even women's rights (he actually had women on the front lines in his forces, including as officers, rather than keeping them in exclusively support and domestic rolls).  He is well known for the phrase “its better to die on your feet than to live on your knees,” a saying so badass that you gain a +1 to strength each time you read it.  He has inspired many people over the years, with many movements for social justice deciding to credit him as a huge influence.  Perhaps the most notable among these is the EZLN.

the EZLN flag

The day was January 1^st, 1994.  Birds were chirping, the streets humming, and everything was perfect in the sleepy little area of Chiapas…  or was it?  Chiapas was in almost every metric the worst off state in Mexico.  Living conditions were abysmal.  About 90% of the population had no running water, 44% were illiterate (compared to a national average of 10%), 75% didn’t finish grade school, 73% were deficient in height and weight, 60% malnourished, and Mim’s “This Is Why I’m Hot” played on repeat on a daily basis.  Their main source of livelihood, the ejidos (collective farmlands which comprised about half of the land in Chiapas), were threatened by NAFTA.  Specifically, they were threatened by the modification of Article 27, which was changed so that ejidos could now be much more easily dismantled by the state and peasants much more easily told to go fuck themselves.

So on the first day of 1994, around 3,000 indigenous fighters stormed into the Municipal Center in Chiapas.  It took everyone by surprise and initially seemed to have the lack of foresight you usually only see in Youtube videos.  Yet, over the next eleven days, the EZLN fought with Mexican soldiers and were able to hold their own, as well as blow up two Death Stars in the process [citation needed].  This came as a huge surprise to everyone, including the president at the time, Carlos Salinas, whose rage could only be satiated by choking multiple unnamed henchmen nearby.

 How could the rebel alliance from Chiapas destroy two Death Stars?!

After fighting stopped on January 12, tensions continued over the next few years, with the Mexican government breaching the ceasefire agreement a few times in 1995.  Then, in 1996, the EZLN and Mexico signed the San Andreas Accords, which would grant more rights to indigenous communities such as self government, custom law, and control over their homeland and resources.  The government didn’t entirely hold out their end of the bargain here, though, which is about as “surprising” a disappointment as a posthumous music album.  After the signing Congress was supposed to pass it, but during the rest of Salina’s and, his successor, Ernesto Zedillo’s presidencies’, nothing happened.  Eventually Vicente Fox, who became president in 2000, withdrew troops from Chiapas and urged ratification of The San Andreas Accords.  When it finally got through, however, it was as watered down as your friend’s self-proclaimed “proudly politically incorrect” views are whenever he or she is around actual brown people.

The EZLN, like Zapata, place an emphasis on indigenous, peasant, poor, and female rights.  Their system is similar with left wing anarchist ideologies like libertarian socialism, but with strong indigenous customs and ideas that keep it from being completely categorized into conventional political categories.  They believe true democracy comes from the bottom up rather than top down and that participatory democracy is much more effective than representative democracy.  They also advocate ideas like mutual aid, antiauthoritarianism, nonviolence (they haven’t fought since the 1994 ceasefire) and opposing globalization, something they believe leads to economic imperialism.

Something very interesting about the EZLN is how they have used technology to further their cause.  They have utilized the internet to tremendous effect, using it to get their ideas out and gain support from various people, organizations, and movements from all over the world, rather than post adorable videos of cats, hilarious videos of cats, or videos of people boning while dressed like cats.  Subcomandante Marcos, the unofficial spokesperson for the movement, has been called a “postmodern Che Guevara.”  His writings are published on the internet for all to see and he has become something of an international celebrity when it comes for revolutionary movements, something he himself isn't completely happy with because he believes the collective is more important than any individual.

 Subcomandante Marcos, keeping it G'ed up from the feet up

Though the EZLN have been largely confined to Chiapas, they have still been active around Mexico in recent years.  For example, in 2006 they started the “Other Campaign” where they traveled around Mexico and said that citizens would gain a lot more from demanding changes to the Constitution rather than voting in the elections.  They have also organized forums for indigenous people throughout the Western Hemisphere, in order to unite and collaborate to further each of their respective causes.

So that’s a quick summary of the EZLN, a group of badass revolutionaries who don’t play by the rules.  To this day they still stand, a principled and nonviolent collective (as opposed to Sendero Luminoso in Peru, the FARC in Colombia, the government in Colombia, the United States when it comes to foreign policy, most other countries when it comes to foreign policy, and The Black Eyed Peas when it comes to Fergie).  They’ve persevered for almost two decades despite avoiding dirty politics or armed violence, which is a lot like persevering through America’s Got Talent despite avoiding dirty politics or armed violence.  Specifically, they’ve been around for eighteen years- which means party time!

Stop Viewing Yourself As Static

Hey there everyone, Happy 2012!  Almost a full week into the new year, this is the time where many of us are starting to realize we may have been overambitious in the new year resolutions some of us have set for ourselves (in retrospect, “sex demigod” and “Punchmaster” were a little lofty).  During this time I’ve seen people describe themselves in fixed terms; dumb or smart, strong or weak, clever or Hollywood producer.  This is stupid and a great reason to make excuses for yourself, whether you describe yourself in good or bad terms, instead of actually working toward your goals.

Trust me when I say that I’ve tried my hand at a lot of things considering my age.  I consistently practice martial arts, public speaking, debate, activism, and writing while maintaining schoolwork, my job, and something resembling a social life.  I am qualified to do completely random things (for instance, I am a marriage officiant) and also have experience in things ranging from standup comedy to male modeling.  This isn't to brag, in fact my point is there is nothing special or unique about me.  In pretty much all of these things, I have almost always started out with the lack of talent you normally see from Republican Senators and their ability to hide secret gay love affairs.

Now before I get too deep into this, I’m not saying that people don’t have certain limitations.  A blind person couldn’t be a sniper, someone with a moral compass couldn’t work for the CIA, and someone with talent couldn’t become an M Night Shyamalan.  But really, at what point does limiting yourself become a self-fulfilling prophecy?  You have so much potential and ability that setting limitations for yourself will just leave you an empty husk of human flesh and a monument to wasted potential, much like a TSA agent.  No one wants that.

More like "Touching Sensitive Areas," am I right?

It takes a lot of time to get good at something, and it takes even longer to initially stop sucking at it.  When I first started martial arts I would cover up after being hit only a couple times, when I started debate my arguments would crumble as quickly as my fighting defense in martial arts, and lets just say we all remember our first time having sex.  However over the years I’ve put in practice to change things around because consistent effort is the only way to get better at something.  Its so obvious, yet so often do we look past this.

Sure, sometimes we’re naturally good at things, but that can almost always be traced back to previous related experience.  For instance, when I started a speech event called impromptu, I was very good at it.  In fact, I earned third place in the novice division at my first tournament despite having only practiced one impromptu speech my entire life beforehand, and that practice speech was done so terribly and incorrectly that calling it an impromptu speech would be like calling 9/11 an airline safety drill.  In impromptu you are given seven minutes to both compose and deliver a speech based around a quotation, using various examples drawn from different subjects to illustrate your point.  How could I be good at this when I had such minimal practice in beforehand?

Its because the event was ideal for me.  I was an ace at this event not because I’m brilliant or because I sacrificed a goat to Cthulhu the night before the tournament (I didn’t start doing that until much later), but because of my previous experiences.  I have extensive experience bullshitting on the go, over-analyzing things, a lot of information I know is exactly the kind of obscure trivia-type facts that just happen to be perfect for an impromptu round, my experience as an activist already gave me a solid speaking voice, and my background in martial arts gave me the ability to physically threaten every other competitor before the final round started.  At that point, I had pretty much clinched the victory!  The Thai clinch, to be specific.

 disclaimer: Anderson Silva is a being from another dimension, immune to rules we humans hold ourselves to

The problem with this sort of previous experience is that it is often confused with natural ability.  For instance, studies (as well as common sense) show a strong correlation between performance in school and coming from backgrounds conducive to a good learning environment, such as being read to often and engaging in a bunch of brain stimulating activities.  However, instead of trying to get everyone on the same page in school, we put kids who do well in school into “gifted” programs where they will have much more educational advantages.  Their initial advantage, stemming from their background, will put them into a much more academic environment while those who grew up in less advantageous conditions will be stuck in normal classes.  This will lead to the former group being much more likely to be put into honors classes, taking AP and IB tests, getting into better colleges with better science orgies (way better science orgies), and eventually becoming intellectuals simply because of a small initial advantage in experience that made others think they were always destined to be intellectuals.

To further illustrate this point, lets take a look at UFC welterweight champion and #2 pound for pound fighter (according to most MMA fans), Georges St Pierre.  Want to know why he first started martial arts?  I’ll give you a hint: it’s a plot line to a lot of movies involving martial arts.  No, not to avenge his fallen instructor or win a tournament to donate the prize money to a local orphanage; its because he was bullied as a kid.  Instead of resigning to the idea he was weaker than US infrastructure, he began training in martial arts and is now one of best fighters in the entire world.  That’s the kind of back story that’s so cool it comes with its own pair of sunglasses and leather jacket.

In a hilarious twist of fate for bullies and douchebags everywhere, GSP also has more swag than them!

One of the hardest things about working toward a goal is that things aren’t like a video game.  You don’t level up after a certain amount of work; you simply get better gradually.  The increments in improvement from one day to the next are usually more insignificant than the self esteem of reality TV stars.  Not only that, but as you progress, those around you progress as well.  Its hard to realize how much better you’ve gotten when others have been growing around you too.  Trying to really conceptualize the fact you are improving can be as challenging and discouraging as trying to find something funny in a Carlos Mencia stand up.  A good method is to challenge yourself periodically in competition, or at the very least some sort of practice event against people whom you don’t normally work with.

As any other person, I’ve been both a champion and victim of consistent effort.  I’ve been able to work to be able to compete with (and sometimes even beat) people who would have previously left a me-sized puddle under their shoes.  There is no feeling like being able to rival someone on a level that used to seem unattainable to you.  Conversely, I have lost to people whom I used to be one roughly the same level with because of their hard work.

For instance, blogging sensation and internet bad boy David Zafra (who has a pretty baller blog about philosophy and film) and I occasionally grapple on the ground.  When we first started out, neither of us trained consistently on the ground and thus we were more or less equal.  He was able to use his better technique (he had tried a couple free Brazilian Jiu-jitsu lessons and crappled with his wife and his brother), while I relied on the sacred art of being bigger and stronger than him.  Each match could have been anyone’s game.  However, while I have always focused more on training striking, he has trained in grappling.  Now when we grapple, tapping me out on the ground is about as difficult a challenge for him as tying a particularly disagreeable shoelace.

 Unfortunately for me, in this analogy I am not Noam Chomsky.

When we lose to people, its rarely because they’re innately better than us.  Usually its because they have more consistent experience (though of course other factors like luck can come in as well, but that’s for another day).  If Zafra were to stop training in BJJ right now and I were to start, I would eventually be able to beat him, and then I’d eventually be able to outclass him.  Meanwhile, if I were to stop my training (which is currently Muay Thai, Jeet Kune Do, and cardio kickboxing) and he were to start, he would eventually be able to beat me in sparring, and then eventually outclass me.  Beyond this example, we’ve all been in a situation where we came back to something we used to do and just aren’t as good, unless of course we’ve had more indirect practice (like I described with the indirect practice that made me good at impromptu).

So in the end, I just want to impart the idea that you don’t do something because you’re good at it, but rather you are good at something because you do it.  Consistent effort pays off and what seem like natural talent can be misleading, like I described with “gifted” programs in schools and my experience doing impromptu.  So when you have a goal, stick to it and believe in yourself.  If you start now you can become better at anything you want.  My goal is to someday be able to write encouraging articles without coming off as corny.