Rhyme and Reason, hold the Religion and Retribution

So, I used to be a Mormon.

An odd way to start, I realize, but it's a detail that is very important. At some level, it will always be a part of who I am, at least in my manner of socialization, awkward vestigial habits, interesting food choices, etc. It'd be folly to think spending my first seventeen year in an ideology and culture so invasive and inward as Mormonism wouldn't leave it's telling signs on me, for better or for worse. Granted, my parents' interpretations of doctrine as applicable to childrearing and their own personal thoughts on the matter still grossly outweigh that, Utah's sway over the trajectory of my previous life cannot be overstated. It is the deviation from said trajectory that we will tonight celebrate.

I used to be a Mormon.

The real inspiration for tonight's post came about, as an alarming number of things in our life these days, from Facebook. An old Mormon friend had come up in my suggestions. Names are here unimportant, but suffice it to say that I knew him from Boy Scouts, Young Men, etc., and the fellow is six months my senior. Intrigued, I click, wondering what's going on in his life. The answer: everything a good Mormon boy should have done/ be doing, none of which he really has any choice over. Submitted for your approval, the list.

I'm a 22-23 year old LDS male. I have done or am doing the following:

1. Beginning at age 19, serve a two year mission in the service of Jesus Christ, to spread his word and administer to his sheep. Also, to be away from my family for an unnecessary amount of time, only able to call twice a year have another man in the same room with me literally all the time, save for lavatory visits.

2. Marry a nice LDS girl. This should be done before any sexual activity or cohabitation.

3. Have a child, maybe 2. Both my wife and I should be in school whilst attempting to raise said child, and I should also be working.

4. Have a leadership position in Boy Scouts or Young Men's.

5. Help somebody move every other fucking weekend.

That's just the short list, but it should give you a good idea.

Now, given the matter-of-fact, nigh on totalitarian manner in which I've presented these, one might be inclined to think I'm overstating as a result of my bitterness. Resist this urge. I honestly wish I were overstating and oversimplifying, but this is the unfortunate reality. These are not choices, these are flowcharts. You hear a lesson one day in Primary and you know how your life is going to go. You may not know the details, but you know how it all goes down. You know that there's a little sub-chart on the Plan of Happiness timeline that involves you going on a mission, coming home, having crappy sex for three years, popping out babies, and eventually just going along with it, waiting until you die and become perfect. Joy.

Fuck that.

I love my freedom. I love the experience that I can learn from fucking up. I embrace the mortality of my existence, and the value it imparts to every experience with the knowledge that they are finite and must be treasured. I steel myself to the fact that in romance, I will hurt a lot of people and will be hurt right back, only to learn from both and make the next better. I don't want to just end up with someone and then start that long, slow march to death hoping like Hell that you don't fart all night long in your sleep. I sure as fuck don't want to raise a child when I still feel like one.

Mormons preach to endure; I preach to live.

Here's to my life:

• To secularism, and its promise of equality and sanity that I cling to daily.
• To science, and its call and standard of the stewardship of knowledge and the eradication of ignorance.
• To atheism, and the richness of a mortal life, loosed of the bands of mysticism and fear.
• To art, and the idea that we can share the human experience one with another, building together our consciousness.
• To food, and being able to nourish our minds as well as our navels.
• To sex, and the incredibly human connection, both phenomenological and numinous, that it gives us with our partners.
• To drugs, and the knowledge that my mind is a tool and I can shape it in myriad ways.
• To thought, and the world that we can create with it.
• To breath, and the way we cherish this one, lest we lose it and it be our last.