This blog stuff is weird. Since it’s sort of unknown what the final shape of this blog will be based on the first post alone, this next post is critical to establishing its direction and tone. I made up a list of all these ideas that I could blog about some day, and I just finished reading over it, and nothing jumps out at me as being the one that logically should go next. Why does all this matter, you ask? Well it doesn’t at all, and I’ve stewed over this long enough, so I’ll just pick a topic and yap for a little bit.
We just finished up a family reunion with the in-laws about a month ago in Bear Lake, Utah. Fun was had by all, but one evening we were all asked to share a thought, be it spiritual, educational, really anything that we felt would be of value to share with everyone. Most people talked about spiritual matters, and some talked about more than one thing. That was actually the time I started to seriously consider blogging, by the way, because I started thinking about all this stuff I could say and I had a hard time narrowing it down. But, narrow it down I did, and I kinda ineloquently rambled on about this topic that I have so much experience about: marriage. (There really should be a dedicated font type for sarcasm.)
Yes, that means that I’m being sarcastic when I say I have all this experience in marriage. How do you define experience in something like marriage, where nobody knows nothing? Who knows what the right things to do are? We pretty much know what the wrong things to do in marriage are, and so maybe if you go on long enough without doing anything wrong, that could be considered as experience… Whatever. In short, to borrow a quote from Yogi Berra, “In baseball, you don’t know nothing.” Just pretend that, instead of baseball and you, he was talking about marriage and me. Then the quote will seem less random and irrelevant.
So, knowing nothing, I must resort to speculating. Why must we get married? Yes yes, there’s that little thing about not going to the highest degree of the ol CK, but if that were the only reason, that would seem a bit arbitrary. No, I say, there has to be more to it than just that (and there is). You can’t have a family without being married, true, but again, that seems like more of a technicality than a valid reason for being.
(Before I go on here, I must make a disclaimer that I am clearly not an apostle or prophet or anything like that, so apply whatever grains of salt you will to my words.)
I shall tell you what marriage has done for me. Back in my post-mission, pre-marriage days, I came to thinking that I was pretty much complete as a person. I was the man with the plan. I had it all figured out. Now, of course, I couldn't tell you what exactly it was that I had figured out, but whatever it was, rest assured that it was nicely figured. I didn't know what else there was to become. I thought I was well-rounded enough, that my personality was pretty much already formed to my liking, and that all that was left in my life was the doing, not the becoming.
Yeah well I was WAY OFF. In fact, you couldn’t be more off than the amount of off-ness by which I was.
Anyone reading this knows all about Jana. She’ll do anything for you. They ain’t never was a more giving person. One of her specific talents is to really find out what people need, or even want, and try to give it to them, simply because she likes to see the people she cares about be happy. On one occasion, there was a birthday in my family and I was trying to shop around for a gift. We had sort of an unwritten rule that it should be around $20-$30 for a gift. I couldn’t tell you who, what, where, when, etc. but I remember that I found a really good deal on this present that was worth about that much, but marked down to maybe less than $10. I remember feeling like quite the hero. I also remember telling Jana about all the money I saved. Her response? Something along the lines of, “Oh good, now we can get something more to go with it!” She was serious.
At first I was baffled, then humbled. Here I was being sneaky and trying to get away with something, and there was Jana, seeing the opportunity to give more.
I never thought of myself as insensitive per se, but sensitivity is something relatively new to me, something that I didn’t quite figure into who I was before marriage. That’s just one example of numerous ways that I came to understand how incomplete I was. There are just so many things I didn’t know that I didn’t know. So it’s all coming into focus. Just as Dorothy Boyd completes Jerry Maguire, or the Dark Knight completes the Joker (but in a less twisted, sadistic way), Jana completes me. Insert collective awwww here.
Being sealed to someone who can offer you a whole other half of a character is quite something. That’s actually a pretty good requirement for getting into the CK, not only with your wifey, but with all family members that you’re sealed to. Perhaps part of the process of obtaining godhood is simply every sealed being filling in each other’s blanks in character (take that with a heaping tablespoon of very grainy salt).
That dang gospel will keep ya humble, I tell ya what. But at least now I know that I don’t know nothing, whereas before I didn’t know that I didn’t know. You know?
We just finished up a family reunion with the in-laws about a month ago in Bear Lake, Utah. Fun was had by all, but one evening we were all asked to share a thought, be it spiritual, educational, really anything that we felt would be of value to share with everyone. Most people talked about spiritual matters, and some talked about more than one thing. That was actually the time I started to seriously consider blogging, by the way, because I started thinking about all this stuff I could say and I had a hard time narrowing it down. But, narrow it down I did, and I kinda ineloquently rambled on about this topic that I have so much experience about: marriage. (There really should be a dedicated font type for sarcasm.)
Yes, that means that I’m being sarcastic when I say I have all this experience in marriage. How do you define experience in something like marriage, where nobody knows nothing? Who knows what the right things to do are? We pretty much know what the wrong things to do in marriage are, and so maybe if you go on long enough without doing anything wrong, that could be considered as experience… Whatever. In short, to borrow a quote from Yogi Berra, “In baseball, you don’t know nothing.” Just pretend that, instead of baseball and you, he was talking about marriage and me. Then the quote will seem less random and irrelevant.
"In [marriage], [Ben] don't know nothing."
So, knowing nothing, I must resort to speculating. Why must we get married? Yes yes, there’s that little thing about not going to the highest degree of the ol CK, but if that were the only reason, that would seem a bit arbitrary. No, I say, there has to be more to it than just that (and there is). You can’t have a family without being married, true, but again, that seems like more of a technicality than a valid reason for being.
(Before I go on here, I must make a disclaimer that I am clearly not an apostle or prophet or anything like that, so apply whatever grains of salt you will to my words.)
I shall tell you what marriage has done for me. Back in my post-mission, pre-marriage days, I came to thinking that I was pretty much complete as a person. I was the man with the plan. I had it all figured out. Now, of course, I couldn't tell you what exactly it was that I had figured out, but whatever it was, rest assured that it was nicely figured. I didn't know what else there was to become. I thought I was well-rounded enough, that my personality was pretty much already formed to my liking, and that all that was left in my life was the doing, not the becoming.
Yeah well I was WAY OFF. In fact, you couldn’t be more off than the amount of off-ness by which I was.
Anyone reading this knows all about Jana. She’ll do anything for you. They ain’t never was a more giving person. One of her specific talents is to really find out what people need, or even want, and try to give it to them, simply because she likes to see the people she cares about be happy. On one occasion, there was a birthday in my family and I was trying to shop around for a gift. We had sort of an unwritten rule that it should be around $20-$30 for a gift. I couldn’t tell you who, what, where, when, etc. but I remember that I found a really good deal on this present that was worth about that much, but marked down to maybe less than $10. I remember feeling like quite the hero. I also remember telling Jana about all the money I saved. Her response? Something along the lines of, “Oh good, now we can get something more to go with it!” She was serious.
At first I was baffled, then humbled. Here I was being sneaky and trying to get away with something, and there was Jana, seeing the opportunity to give more.
I never thought of myself as insensitive per se, but sensitivity is something relatively new to me, something that I didn’t quite figure into who I was before marriage. That’s just one example of numerous ways that I came to understand how incomplete I was. There are just so many things I didn’t know that I didn’t know. So it’s all coming into focus. Just as Dorothy Boyd completes Jerry Maguire, or the Dark Knight completes the Joker (but in a less twisted, sadistic way), Jana completes me. Insert collective awwww here.
Jerry Maguire completing Dorothy Boyd
Batman "completing" the Joker
Jana completing the Ben-Jammin
Being sealed to someone who can offer you a whole other half of a character is quite something. That’s actually a pretty good requirement for getting into the CK, not only with your wifey, but with all family members that you’re sealed to. Perhaps part of the process of obtaining godhood is simply every sealed being filling in each other’s blanks in character (take that with a heaping tablespoon of very grainy salt).
That dang gospel will keep ya humble, I tell ya what. But at least now I know that I don’t know nothing, whereas before I didn’t know that I didn’t know. You know?
Jana workin her trash like it ain't no thang
