Marrying Absurd - For How Long?

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and what begins in there often ends there too. Despite the adventurous marriage options provided by Sin City, 12% of all males and 14.6% of all females living in Vegas are divorced. Las Vegas promotes a sense of living in the moment, regardless of the consequences. When I personally visited, the first step out of the airport was filled with a suffocating heat, followed by a strange sense of claustrophobia in such a large environment. Regardless of the 641,676 people living there, everything felt strange and foreign. With the mars-like terrain and distance from all other civilization, Vegas has a detached, fake feeling, leading many to do things they otherwise would never do. In Vegas everything has a nostalgic feel, as if everyone is trying to return to "the good old times". As Didion mentions, there is no real sense of time in Vegas, which is associated with no real sense of consequence. People make rash, irresponsible decisions with life altering results, and brush it off as living in the moment. Vegas is slightly unsettling, and is a boiling pot for many of the "off-limits" things in life. Many people treat it like a game, but fail to realize there are no retries. Aside from the staggering divorce rate, Vegas also has the 13th highest incarceration rates in the U.S., leading me to believe there is something fundamentally wrong with the city. From its roots in mob activity, Vegas has always been a place of rebellious behavior, and seems to be a husk of the cultural hub it sought to be.