Restructuring cumuli on Venus

Having to rewrite one's view of the ideal future is a rather daunting task. I've been conditioned my entire life to view relationships and my future a set way; That whole romantic "meet the one and share the rest of your life with that individual" concept. At no point during my coming to accept myself, for being gay, did I ever question whether I would one day marry and settle down. I really didn't process it as an option, rather it was how it had to be.

Stability and predictability are the hallmarks of civilization and society. By that I mean, We actively seek to nail down information on everything in life. We want to know for absolute bedrock certainty that things will remain unchanged, and that reactions will remain consistently predictable. Once those two prerequisites are met, we then build on that reliability. Complex structures and systems emerge over time as each generation builds on the foundations put forth by the previous ones. While we can observe; chronicle; record; and analyze the world around us, we cannot apply that same logic to individuals. Natural systems behave in predictable patterns and as soon as all the information is available, you can start to plot the progress on paper. The human mind and heart are, however, another universe unto itself. Sure, there are certain reactions, and behaviors common to us all. Being sentient and self-aware, does, however, imbue us with a trait that is removed from the natural world. This unique quality ensures that every person perceives the world from a different vantage point. Two people may share a similar understanding of an event, but the overall image and memories will vary greatly.

Historically, at least in the sense of Western cultures, we have sought to apply the same laws and rules for growth to emotional relationships as we have to the tangible world. In a world before the advent of the information age, people looked to the church for guidance. The church, in turn, had written laws for how people were to form unions with one another. The law of the land dealt with the financial and physical (tangible), and the law of the church managed the mental and emotional (intangible) assets of the people. These early cultures didn't have a significant amount of stability in their lives. Small changes in either physical or mental worlds lead to death by any number of means. For this reason, the church was tasked with creating defined protocols for behavior. In many ways, these were far-overreaching, and as time and society has progressed, we have slowly left a great majority of these concepts behind.

Marriage persists. The definition of marriage varies from one religion to the other, but most recognize some form of emotional union. In Western cultures, the predominate religion is Christianity (whether catholic or protestant of alignment, it's all rooted in the same belief system). Christianity defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman for the purposes of procreation. This is why we have such a conflict in the United States over the government granting marriage rights to same sex partners. Government and religion overlap in certain areas. Government shouldn't really be delving into morality issues. It's primary job is to protect the physical interests of the people, and to keep people's beliefs from infringing on other's civil rights. The US was founded on a concept of separation of church and state, but even from the beginning religious concepts infiltrated law. In a true separation of the two, a religious construct should be free to practice it's beliefs, but special privileges or rights should not be granted, by government, for those religious institutions. Once government grants a right or privilege to one group, it has an obligation to offer it to all groups fairly. When marriage was written into social law, it changed from being a religious ideology to being a social contract. To those of a religious bent, the idea that religious ideology is the way the world should be goes without question. Thus the two sides of the debate over marriage equality. Where marriage is one of those last socio-emotional constructs dictated by the church, and thus one of the last footholds it has on the people, the debate became a rather nasty social war.

I've digressed quite a bit. I have held to a view of love and marriage that is rooted in Christian beliefs. I was raised in a home that, while not overly theocratic, was clearly rooted and founded on ideals drawn from the bible. This is why even in the face of current social law, changing social views, and flippant political strata, I never questioned my idea of the perfect union. However, now I am forced to confront that this image in my head is probably not a logical or practical one anymore. It was a well crafted painting, but it was done in watercolors, then left for the elements. The truth of the matter is, when you really love a person, you uncover things about yourself you never thought possible. Love can bring out the worst demons from your soul or it can force you to think about things, make changes and grow. The former can be deadly, the later enlightening. We have an amazing capacity to adapt to a wide variety of situations, and this capacity extends to mental and emotional processes. The ongoing process of letting go of that watercolor painting is not without pain, possibly a great deal of it over time, but it's also liberating and re-assuring. I lament the lost ideals, but enjoy the extra security I am now feeling with my partner.