Monday, November 11, 2013

Kurt Vonnegut.


"So it goes."
from Vonnegut's classic Slaughterhouse-Five
"Shit happens, and it's awful, but it's also okay.
We deal with it because we have to."
That's the way things are.

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."

from Cat's Cradle and the Bokononist religion
Man's just another animal, it implies, with his own peculiar instincts, and his own way of shutting them down.
This is horrifically cynical when considered closely: If people deciding they understand the world is just another instinct, then enlightenment is little more than a pit-stop between insoluble questions, a necessary but ultimately meaningless way of taking a sanity break. At the same time, there's a kindness to Bokonon's belief that this is all inevitable and just part of being a person. Life is frustrating and full of pitfalls and dead ends, but everybody's gotta do it.

No comments:

Post a Comment