mood: drained

music: Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No.9 in D minor, op.125

People are amazing.

Sunday afternoon, upon realizing that I was quite famished, I decided to head over to a fast-food burger joint. This is not a standard dining experience for me; I loathe fast food. However, having only $5 in my pocket, my dining options were severely limited. After I placed my order, I pulled up to the car in front of me, which was waiting to get it's food. One of two girls who were taking a smoking break at an outdoor eating table (They appeared to be employees) attempted to strike up a "conversation" with me:

Girl: Hi. Me: Hi. Girl: You're kind of cute. Would you be my boyfriend? Me: No. Girl: Aww, why not? Me: Should you really be soliciting your customers in that way? Girl: Oh, I'm sorry. Me: It's just a tad unprofessional.

I was, frankly, appalled. We, as a society, have reached the point where relationships are no longer cared about. We are a people of shallow, cheap, and meaningless infatuations. No longer do we devote ourselves to one person. We have jobs, things to do, people to see. We don't have time for other people. Why bother to commit to a single individual when you can grab a boyfriend while going through the drive-through? Even people who say they're committed are likely to be lying. At least for the United States, DivorceForum.org reports that 47% of all US marriages end in divorce.

Perhaps this is part of the reason why kids growing up today don't think too much of marriage. Mom and dad are married, and they don't love each other. Maybe we're getting married with the idea that somewhere down the line, the magical romance fairy will stop by and make us fall in love. But love does not follow marriage, it's supposed to be other way around. Then again, maybe not.

Maybe marriage isn't really all that important. There's no big "boom" after the priest says "I now pronounce you husband and wife." that makes the whole thing officially binding. (The official part is doen a few minutes earlier with a rather un-romantic-looking marriage license and two pens.) Love has to come first, a love that's inviolate and steadfast. After all, marriage is just some words said over some people in an official sense. Or is it?

Marriage, I believe, is a covenant made with the other person. It's an agreement made to the person you love, for the purpose of saying "I'm completely committed to you." Is it possible to have complete and total commitment outside of matrimony? Sure. But, like a string tied around your finger, it's a daily reminder of that commitment. More than that, it's a promise (legal and otherwise) to stay faithful to your chosen mate. Marriage also seems to be the best environment for bringing up children. A mom and a dad, obviously committed to one another in both the legal sense of the term and the emotional one, encourages them to do likewise. Divorce is a terrible thing for a child to endure; a reassurance that mom and dad aren't going to stop loving each other is a good thing.

I realize that most of these are fairly lame reasons for marriage. Perhaps marriage itself is only important in the legal sense (Increased taxes, anyone?) Perhaps what matters is a commitment only to each other; the ceremony is useless pomp. Perhaps the ceremony itself is just another reason to eat large amounts of cake and those little minty things. Marriage then, comes down to one thing: commitment.

(I wonder how this rant about society turned into a soapbox for marriage.)

I watched The Butterfly Effect Friday night with pinterface. For those playing the home game, "the butterfly effect" is a term laughingly coined by the people who thought up the chaos theory. The butterfly effect is the idea that the almost imperceptible currents made by a butterfly flapping it's wings in north America, could set into motion a chain of events that would lead to (or prevent) a typhoon halfway across the world next month. The movie has way too many naked people. Ugly naked people. When I want to watch a 300 lb. Goth copulating, I'll go to the internet, thank you. I had a whole review typed out, but I found someone else who did a better job than me while saying the same thing, which can be found here. In contrast, me and Pix went to see "The Incredibles" on...Friday, was it? An excellent movie all around.