James Sexton

So...

The most important book that I've ever read that has impacted my marriage more than anything else was a book called The Power of Myth.

Written by Joseph Campbell, the guy that helped George Lucas write Star Wars.

And in it, he puts forward the idea that we don't have enough rituals in our lives anymore.

And I can't remember if he says this expressly or this is just what I was going through.

And so it landed for me this way.

But my memory of it is he was saying part of the reason I think the divorce rate is so high is that there's no meaningful transition between not married and married.

And so when I think about marriage as an artifact of evolution, like you were saying, the wisdom that's

passed down, this is people that are like, okay, wait a second.

We understand that the kid has a way better chance of surviving long enough to have kids.

If two people come together, they stay together.

We know that the human mind has a very fascinating ability to make a concept very tangible.

So God is a concept, but ooh, buddy, does it become very tangible?

People will kill for it, die for it, the whole nine.

And one of the ways we lock that in is by putting people through a ritual.

And so he was going through all these different like coming of age rituals used to be a thing and all that stuff.

And so I was like, exactly.

So I said, okay, I want to be different the day after I get married than the day before.

And so I went through a ritualistic scarification.

I wanted it to be painful.