Paradox of Opinions

I can’t sing.

I mean, I’m not going to make people cover their ears and run out of the room screaming or anything. But I’m also not going to warm up the pipes and make ladies swoon. I’m capable enough to do what I need to do and comfortable enough to know it’s not exactly my spiritual gift.

But don’t you dare tell me that I can’t sing, because I will get livid, and I will get indignant.

It doesn’t make any sense, does it? I mean, I will admit when I’m not good at certain things. I love playing basketball, but I know I wouldn’t make any college rosters. But if you treat me like I can’t make it up and down the court without tripping over myself, I will hate you.

It’s this weird paradox. I normally wouldn’t really care about not really being a great singer or basketball player. It doesn’t bother me that much to not be stellar at it. I don’t care enough. Yet as soon as somebody other than me makes a comment about it, I’m hurt.

You probably know what all of this ultimately relates to, but don’t worry. I’m avoiding the politics of anything that is going on. If you want my opinion you can ask for it, but I’m not going to bore you with wordy articles that do nothing but toot my own horn.

It’s impossible right now to avoid posts or Facebook statuses or profile pictures talking about equal rights and sexuality. That’s totally cool if you’re the type of person who feels convicted enough about these issues to speak out. Good for you.

It’s interesting, because at no other point in history would this have been an issue. In all of history, if people wanted to do something, they just did it. The ancient Romans didn’t ask for permission to bang anything that moved. They just went forth and banged like it was the reason they were put on this earth.

The irony of it all is that we are so fired up about the rights of an institution that we view as a joke these days. It is glorified and honored in our society to have sex. TV characters like Barney Stinson or Don Draper are popular because they have these crazy antics and frequent sexual exploits that we just can’t help but enjoy. We make jokes constantly about people sleeping with other people’s girlfriends or boyfriends or sisters or whatever family member would be most humorous without completely crossing the line.

We glorify polygamy. Going back to the Don Draper point: Mad Men is an entire TV show based around men cheating on their wives and never being satisfied. They move from thing to thing, woman to woman, never stopping the exploitation who they can for what they can and never once considering that things could ever be different. They are just like us: never being satisfied, yet always craving this thing called “happiness” that seems so out of reach. Life. Liberty. The Pursuit of Happiness. Being happy is placed above all other rights except the right to live and the right to be free. And we want our happiness to come in whatever selfish way we can get it.

I saw an annoyingly melodramatic political Facebook statuses this week that concluded with the line: “Equal rights for all, or equal rights for none.” At this point, I feel like the latter is more applicable. What gives anyone the right to marriage in a society where it is referred to as the “ball and chain” and seen as the end of freedom? Why should anyone of us care who gets married when we are told on a daily basis that the way to be happy is to be promiscuous? Should equal rights really be for all, without any question at all? Or should we be reminded of what it is like to appreciate the rights we don’t deserve?

My point isn’t to argue about what should be legal and who should have the right to be married. My point is that it’s pretty absurd that we’ve spent years cheating on our spouses and treating as many relationships as we can like marriage without actually being marriage, just to turn around and act upset about who has the right to be married. We don’t care about the issue for a long time, then somebody makes comments and we act like we always have.

That’s the irony of it all: fighting for the right to pretend about monogamy in a society that worships polygamy. We don’t have a crisis with redefining marriage. We have a crisis with our own identity. We don’t know what to care about or how to care about it. We only know how to be offended by every opinion that is thrown out.

That’s the only thing I really wanted to point out. I could have written a post that simply said, “It’s funny how upset we get about the legality of an institution we don’t respect anymore” but I figured I needed an outlet to talk about Don Draper too.

I don’t know how to “fix” our society. I don’t know how to try. I do know, however, that public opinion isn’t going to stop me from singing as loudly as I can in my car as I drive.