The Title Doesn't Match

Sorry about the hiatus this weekend.  I was at an assemblage of some of the most terrifying and powerful beings on Earth better known as the wedding of a family member causing my extended family to gather together.  It was truly a momentous event that likely caused the downfall of a civilization somewhere on Earth.

Interestingly enough, after getting back from this wedding, today in one of my classes we watched the movie "Wedding Crashers".  If you haven't seen it, go find it somewhere.  I'm sure you have a friend that will let you borrow it.  It's hilariously amazing.

The movie, toward the end, exemplifies an idea that has been lurking in the back of the minds of humanity for years.  It plays on the idea that weddings and funerals have this odd antithetic yet somehow parallel relationship.  Look at them.  At both, lots of family gets together.  The family then spends most of their time talking to each other rather than the one/s that they are assembled to honor all the while forcing themselves to portray the appropriate emotion required by the rest of the assemblage.

In my experience, at weddings, people expect you to be happy.  If you aren't happy, you come across as a love-hating cynic.  At funerals, there is an expectant sadness to the event.  While both of these emotions are very apparent at both events, there is a secondary layer of emotion that is often ignored.

At funerals, good funerals at least, despite the overarching sadness to the event, there is this strange sense of joy.  Often times, a death is one of the only things that can truly bring a family together and show the amount of support a person can receive.  As this usually invisible support system becomes apparent, the love between the people involved becomes almost tangible.  And so, as loved ones gather to see someone off on their final voyage from this world, it can end up being less of a sad event and a truly joyous occasion.

Weddings, on the other hand, have a dark undertone that may not be apparent to the general public.  I'm sorry to tell you that seeing other people happy does not necessarily mean one will be happy in reciprocity.  In fact, it can have the opposite effect.

"True happiness is found in the suffering of others."  -Shareshth the Destroyer

While this quote may not always be true, and certainly comes from a truly dark and damaged mind, there is a grain of truth to it.  Often times, schadenfreude rules out in a large chunk of humanity.  (If you don't know what schadenfreude is, "Two and a Half Men" describes it as a German experience where inn America, we just say "Haha!")

A wedding, for some people (particularly single people), is an opportunity for two people to rub in the face of the rest of the world just how happy they are.  Even in those who don't feel this way, they often find themselves critiquing the wedding, looking for flaws in it that they would do better for their wedding.  These two groups of people fuse together to create a secondary emotional layer to weddings that is full of spite and derision.

This means that funerals have a deep seated joy while weddings have a deep seated spite.  And people wonder why I like funerals better than weddings.

Actually, I think one of the main reasons for this is because my home congregation is well known for putting on "good funerals".  At one of the last funerals held at my church, one man said that it was "the best damn funeral I've ever been to!"  This sounds weird, but we really do put on great funerals.  I have long said that the only reason some people don't like spaghetti is because they have never had my mom's.  The same applies to funerals.  The only reason some people don't like them is because they have never been to a good one.  I wish I could explain what makes a funeral "good", but I really don't know.

Ultimately, the way I see it is you can gleam any emotion you want from virtually any event.  If you really want to enjoy a funeral, you can find the joy in it.  If you really want to hate a wedding, you can find something to hate about it.



P.S.  I spent today working on my novel.  Those interested will be happy to know that I am now approximately 8% of the way done with it.  If you haven't read the preview of it yet, please check it out on my website:  Cherubim.