Did you ever see a truly happily married man under the age of say sixty? I mean a real man, one that could help you move a couch, or run a software company. A real man has direction in his life, goals, ambitions; a real man takes the life given to him, and creates something that is a reflection of him. He uses all his abilities everyday, every way he can think of, and when he is done with his current task he moves on to another one. These men are rarely married, and even rarer happily married, they are the snow leopard compared to the house cat. And the reason these men are not married, is because marriage is confining, defining, and boring.
The biggest enemy to a life fulfilled is routine and boredom, ala marriage. Marriage is a trap laid early by society, misery loves company. The miserable peddle this lifestyle. Women lay the trap with lots of sex, good food, a clean bathroom, all can be yours, if you just get married, never again will you go without the gifts a woman can bring. The life seeking man recognizes those traps ahead of time. They are not the lions at the bottom of the pit with the slab of meat dangling precariously over it. They see the trap of marriage ahead of time, the trap of being snared and held up for public viewing with four walls around you.
Married men are on display, a zoo animal that does what he is told, eats when told, works when told, hell they even copulate when they are told. They try to make their little display the best of anyone they know. Look at me in my suburbia American dream, look at my house, look at my boat, and look at how my kid can pitch. Aren't I doing great? Aren't I?
And then there are men who do what they want, when they want. These are the men usually loathed by the domesticated men, loathed by the society at large, most of whom dwell in their cages. And then these men are later featured on 60 Minutes for what they have become when they re-write the rules of their particular endeavor. And they did it all without being bored, without being told what to do, and without being married to a woman who thinks it is her job to tame the beast, and churn out a carbon copy of the man in the next cul-de-sac.
Man can survive all sorts of tragedies and set backs in their time on Earth. But accepting boredom is accepting death. It is not greed, violence, jealousy, desire or any other trait but boredom that is the ultimate downfall of man. An unwillingness to fight boredom with the ferocity of a mother bear is acceptance of a life not worth living.
Marriage is the cradle of mediocrity and is beaten into our heads as the thing to do all our childhood. Grow up, fall in love, get a job, and then have kids. In our society marriage is the stage for child rearing. Boys don't have real men in their home as role models. That is why boys idolize celebrities. They are starving for role models of success, of individualism, of vision and achievement, not someone who spends all day playing yes man, and then can't even remember the hot sauce at the take out.
Unfortunately for many men they recognize the trappings, after the life of domesticity has firmly gripped their soul. Breaking away is not easy, but it is done on a frequent basis. The saddest thing to see is these men given their freedom at a huge financial cost, and then what do they do with their freedom? They go right back into another zoo, another cage, thinking it will be better with a different zoo keeper. But entrapment is entrapment, no better the quality of the trap.
Then these twice fooled creatures are seen lying to the world and to themselves saying that they are happily married. Like a trained poodle they jump through all the hoops their wife and boss put before him, after completing each trick they pant their little tongue, wag their little tail, and await the kibble for their little reward. Good doggie, good doggie, you play your cards right for the next six days, you might get some Saturday night. Or kiss up for the next seven years and you just might be Junior Executive. And all the while he holds his wife up like a trophy, his quality of entrapment defines him, as he trades up for the biggest cage.
He plays life like it is a monopoly game, go around and around and avoid landing on anything painful. He seeks comfort, safety, and sameness. And you can see it in his eyes, the boredom of a meaningless game, playing by rules he didn't invent.
The choice is each of ours, on the one hand you have certain boredom until death, and on the other you have the unknown. Not monopoly but a pirate's adventure, things can go wrong, there can be pain, there can be real fear, but there will never be boredom.
Unfortunately most men choose the boredom without really knowing the alternative was so obvious. Does the snow leopard want the one sure meal at the cost of his freedom, or would he rather starve in a blizzard seeking the last rabbit in his territory. The choice is yours.
