This past June, I got married. It was one of the best days of my life, and I hope to never have to experience it again. As anyone who has been through one knows, weddings are a deeply magical experience festooned with deeply unmagical questions: inside or outside? Who pays for what? Is beet salad an "appropriate" main dish? Should we rent these ponies? Behind which bush do I need to crouch to smoke my cigarettes, and do I need to wait to play "Big Pimpin'" until after dark?

But never were the conversations with my fianc more tendernever was the pink belly of Us more exposedthan when discussing the ceremony. As it should be, I thinkthe ceremony being the formalized articulation of the union, the part that should ideally express your private identity as a couple and yet serve as something that your friends and family can feel included in, too. Having been to a handful of priestless, DIY-type occasions before (and having officiated one myself), I was inclined to script the ceremony ourselves, in collaboration with an officiant picked from our friends or family. After some good, long conversations, my now-wife and I settled on our target: her dad.

Some background: Both my wife and I are Jewish. For those who don't know, Jewishness, the identityas opposed to Judaism the religionis one of those unavoidable technicalities of birth: You either are or you aren't. (There's a good David Cross bit in which he tries to tell a rabbi that he doesn't feel Jewish, to which the rabbi keeps askingin his placid, rabbinical wayif Cross' mother's vagina is Jewish, a fact he can't talk his way out of.) As a kid, I went to Hebrew school and got Bar Mitzvah'ed; in college, I came home for the high holidays and led my family's Passover Seder. Jewishness was never something I enjoyed or felt close to, but I performed it the way I mowed the lawn or cleaned the house: Dutifully, with a tinge of grudge that always dissipated into mild boredom. Setting aside the specifics of my own beliefs for a minute, I can say that Rabbi Silverman would probably be disappointed, and yet as someone fully indoctrinated to Jewish guilt, I feel compelled to tell Rabbi Silverman publicly that I'm sorry.

My wife had a better experience, and still maintains a kind of abstract commitment to the idea of it"it" meaning "being Jewish." Her parents are more formal in their practice. You can see the conflict taking shape here, regarding the wedding: We wanted to be true to ourselves, fair to each other, and respectful to her parents, especially considering that it was her father who would be doing the spiritual and legal business of putting us together.

I concede that this situation could have been infinitely worse: Her parents didn't consider me a heathen or think I was going to burn in hell for what I did or didn't believe. (My wife's sister had the very sad experience of having her childhood rabbi decline to marry her and her husband because his family was vaguely Christian, despite the fact that her husband personally wasn't religious one way or the other and made his peace with raising his children Jewish cleara miserable, disillusioning situation.) Still, the friction was there. Would we say prayers? Would they be in English or Hebrew? Would we invoke God, and if so, would we invoke God as such?

At first, I tried to register my feelings in the most general terms possible: I didn't want to have a religious ceremony. It turns out that what constitutes a religious ceremony is up for some seriously passive-aggressive debate. Then I tried to register my feelings with bureaucratic specificity, as though programming a microwave: I'd prefer if there wasn't Hebrew, I'd prefer if we didn't use the word "god," etc. Mostly this served to escalate things to their inevitable head: a conversation with my almost in-laws about god. Humbly, some tips.

1. Know what you believe.

If this seems like an insultingly easy step, congratulations: You're probably already living on top of a mountain, breathing deeply of the aspens and firs, spending your mornings riding a bicycle and your afternoons embedded in haiku, with a few minutes of checking up on investments before dinner, which you will take amongst the elk. For most people, though, I sense that this is a process that takes one's entire young life to work out, with plenty of paralyzing moments of questioning afterward. (I can't say for sure, because I don't think I'm old enough just yet.) It wasn't until I considered dissenting from my wife's parents' beliefs that I realized I wasn't entirely sure of my owna realization that I probably should've made on behalf of my own parents, but I've already apologized to Rabbi Silverman, and I risk dignity if I get too loose with my regrets.

What I'm trying to say here is that maybe you need to take yourself into a dim corner and ask yourself what it is you really want out of this religion-and-spirituality thing. Maybe it's nothing, maybe it's everything; in any case, when entering a space in which such topics could be of interpersonal consequenceplanning a wedding, for exampleit would serve you well to have been seriously honest with yourself, outside the shadow of your parents, outside the shadow of your community, etc. I joke with my wife that if she wants our children to be Bar or Bat Mitzvah'ed, I'm fine with it, as long as I can drive them deep into the desert with a gun and a huge sack of marijuana after the ceremony, because in god's eyes, that's the day they become an adult, and in turn should be given the adult privilege of making adult decisions. (They could shoot the gun or bury it in the ground; they could smoke the marijuana or feed it to a horse. This is one of the many ways I undermine my rearing.) Point being that if you're getting married, there's a good chance you're already an adult whether you realize it or not, so do yourself a favor and treat yourself like one. Ask yourself: How do you feel about the metaphysical world?

Read more here:
How To Talk About God, And Your Wedding, With Your Future In-Laws

Writing can be lonely work. I read this statement in The Wall Street Journal last week in a column by a man named Edward Gerson. Thirteen years ago, at the age of 87, this man began writing for Dartmouth, his alma mater, chronicling the adventures of his graduating class of 1926. At the time he had about 150 people to write about. Now, at age 100, only 3 of his fellow 1926 alumni remain. So Gerson writes what he can about them, then writes his opinions (hey!) on things in general.

Who tunes in though? Who wants to hear about the three Dartmouth graduates from the Jazz Age? (Besides the occasional journalist trying to find a story for the daily oddball column). Who wants to read this column, for that matter (I know that you think its great, but that doesnt stop me from feeling insecure about how the others feel). Any of what follows obviously could be wrong, but its sort of scratching at the truth of what many writers face and all people contemplate: How do we react to that realization that maybe no one is listening, that maybe were alone?

As I write this in a cold garage (dont ask), I think about Gerson at his old wooden desk writing on a legal pad some 450 miles south of here. What does one worry about at 100? At 23, when I pause to consider my trouble, most seem more like distractions. Id be lying if I said there wasnt something in me that longed to spend more quality alone time, to go off into the wilderness on my own, like McCandless, Thoreau or Tolstoy at the end of his life. Why? There are plenty of reasons. Heres the main one: Sometimes you have to choose between being alone and being lonely.

Really though, loneliness is something you choose, and the choice is always there because youre always alone (to some degree). Dont believe me? Well, read on! Remember, I just play the game, I dont put the writing on the wall. If you think this is off topic for mental health, I strongly disagree. The choice between feeling lonely and being alone may be the most important one you make.

i:

Lets get back to our centurion correspondent, Mr. Gerson. Hes incredible in my eyes, for taking up the pen at 87. Im not the only one to think that. In the column, its mentioned that one 20-something current Darthmouthian sends him some encouraging fan mail. Knowing that you have fans can be fantastic (no pun intended). Im no celebrity, but I cant imagine they ever start to feel too famous. Dont tell me they hate being mobbed at the grocery store. Anyone saying they dont want fame is lying or trying to relieve the cognitive dissonance of not getting any. But fame is a double edged sword. If the subject of fame stops working for the sake of work and starts to work to please the fans, the results ring false. Just think of all those bands you know where the first album rocked and the second was eh. When youre just getting into a band, the go-to album is their Self-Titled release because its usually their first, and its probably their best. Those later albums pander to the fans. The choice is between working for yourself or for others. The timeless musicians take on their fans. Whether its Dylan going electric or Kendrick Lamar trying new sounds (see subtitle). Its not like the greats dont read fan mail or care about their fans, but like Gerson its not at the heart of what they do.

Darkos New Friend:

Have you heard the Nirvana song where the singer is happy, because theyve found all of their friends, and those friends are in their head? When I was in the hospital and outpatient facility, I met people, some my age, who heard voices in their head. To be honest, I pitied those people and was relieved that I was not that crazy. People who live alone with their voices sound like the kind whod commit an atrocity one day (i.e. the voice told me to do it). This is garbage, however. Its garbage because we all hear voices in our heads. Im hearing one as I write this speaking these words. Later Ill be hearing one telling me to finish my Econ homework (actually, I can hear it now).

The writer Eckhart Tolle had a transformative breakdown in his late twenties (as a Ph.D student) when he realized that the only difference between himself and the crazy lady on the train was that she said her thoughts aloud. This inner dialogue is basically the adult version of playing with imaginary friends as a kid. Sometimes when no one else is around, a kid might ask GI Joe or Barbie what they want to do not realizing that theyre really asking themselves. Most adults dont have a doll, but they perform the same self-talk without acknowledging it to themselves. When people are together, this self-talk can create problems. Why do you think communication is one of the most important job skills? We think we have conversations with others, but really were just talking with ourselves.

Poor Miss Lonelyhearts:

See the rest here:
Psyches & Serpents: Self-Titled