Memories Of The Future

Once, in a "boxcar [I] said, "Oz." That was I. That was me. The only other city I'd ever seen [apart from Dresden] was Indianapolis, Indiana" (Vonnegut Pg. 148). I recall the magnificent sight as if it were 1945. As if "seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains" (Vonnegut Pg. 85-86), I will recall the "home away from home" (Vonnegut Pg. 152) we were given and taught to call Slaughter House-Five. It was a cozy place with terrible memories of death, not unlike those that will be formed of the present in the future. How do I describe my experiences with that bum called Pilgrim? I shall do my best. He was a quiet fellow who will one day become very famous and then die. The way in which he dies is already known by me, him, and all of his followers of the future. When he was a young optometrist and his millipede of a four-dimensional body, and walked "bobbing up-and-down, up-and-down" (Vonnegut Pg. 65), Billy was a man who had completely gotten accustomed to his lifestyle of "bobbing..." (Vonnegut Pg. 65). How he did it was a precious mystery which we all long to avoid and achieve in a way.

Life is a big roller coaster: Billy knew that. And although we long for the ups and dread the downs, we will only feel the emotions they cause if they are aware of the present, and only the present. Why then, would anyone be condemned to a life without any expectations or goals or excitement? Is it truly a good thing to have the ability to be a time-traveler-seer as are the Tralfalmadorians and Billy Pilgrim? Maybe "ignorance is bliss" (Thomas Gray. Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College ).

It Just Is (The "is" is Italicized)

A friend once asked me why I walked as I did. You know, "bobbing up-and-down, up-and-down..." (Vonnegut Pg. 65). It is the way in which I was made to go on my way. We are all preset to a life of unexpectedness and change. There's just nothing to do about that. That's the way which we're all predestined to follow. So as I stared into my friend's eyes, and he stared into mine, I knew that I had to explain to him the patience that having "ups and downs, ups and downs" (Vonnegut Pg. 87) in my life required. Some people often lost patience with my ups and downs because they are reminded of theirs.

Then I confess, "I have gotten eerily accustomed to my "ups and downs, ups and downs" (Vonnegut Pg. 87) for they are easier to bear that way, expecting them and all. Also, it entertains me wherever I go, so that no trip is without its excitement. Life is better that way."

So as I'm trying to explain to my friend how to cope with the "ups and downs, ups and downs" (Vonnegut Pg. 87) in one's life, he interrupts and demands a status check on our relationship, as if I knew. He then says: "We are close friends, very close. We know each other better than anyone". You must remember this is the "... ultimate form of aggression" (Freudian Terminology)! I then proceed to fog up the mirror with my breath and draw a smiley face with my finger.

The Undead Language: Latin

I agree with David Crystal on his point on the status of a language subjectively based on usage. However, I believe that we must consider not the lives of the languages, but of their dialects, because, for the most part, the dialects are the ones who sprout and change from the language rather than the language itself. Therefore, I believe that Latin is not a dead language or a live language at all, but an undead. Furthermore, it is Latin's dialects that can be considered alive. For instance, Vulgar Latin (although not actually a dialect, but a folk version of the language) is extinct, and has been transformed into the latin-derived languages we know today. Vernacular languages, therefore, are the ones I consider to be the ones doing the transformation.

One Big Timeline

If I choose to stop writing this blog, how can I be sure that I actually chose to do so and it wasn’t predicted beforehand, making my “choice” of doing so not a choice at all? The truth is, I can’t. If I were “a Tralfalmadorian, seeing time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains” (Vonnegut Pg. 85-86), my perception of not only the future, past, and present would change, but so would my perception of life altogether. What is the purpose of a life lived when nothing will happen and everything has happened beforehand? Is the purpose of life simply to be? By saying that “all time is all time” (Vonnegut Pg. 86), the alien kidnapper insinuates the possibility of the present, past, and future existing as one entity and at the same time. “all time” (past, present, and future) exists at all times. When you are born, you are dying and being conceived, all at once. Shall we, then, see life as simply a live time-line, where one sees the video of life with ability to fast-forward and rewind?

If you “Take it moment by moment, you will find that we are all…bugs in amber” (Vonnegut Pg. 86). By ‘bugs in amber’, Vonnegut describes the purposelessness of our life, and our great inability to do anything about it. What motivation have we to live, knowing that everything is planned for us? If we shall release ourselves unto the uncontrollable rivers of life, we would capitulate the meaning and pleasures of life. Knowing that we have the choice to do good or bad leaves us with a great responsibility, but also with a great sense of pride, knowing that whatever has become of us is product of the choices we made in the past. Our life is our life’s work, not the figment of written history.

If it were proven before us, that free will is merely a figment of our many hopes and dreams, does that mean that we are free to do anything we please? Does it mean that we can stop trying so hard to make life for ourselves? What then, would happen? I believe that unless we gain the ability to envision time in the perspective of the Tralfalmadorians, we shall always attempt to make the choices that will form a better life for us. We would never surrender our “illusions” of free-will without solid evidence of the “all time is all time” theory.

Says Who?

As in Dante’s Inferno, the Author of Slaughter House-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, employs a literary device by meddling with the time-line and changing the narrator every so often. For instance, the change of narrator that occurs in the Holocaust book is a transition from the writer of the book within the book, who is depicted in first-person narration, while he to whom all the events described is told by an omnipresent voice. The ubiquitous narrator is he who describes how “I was there. So was my old war buddy, Bernard V. O’Hare” (Vonnegut Pg. 67), and by so doing so, makes us be aware of the fact that the first person narrator is living in the post-war future of Billy Pilgrim, who’s story he describes in third-person form: “Billy owned a lovely Georgian home in Ilium” (Vonnegut Pg. 61). I believe that the Vonnegut makes this transition from the narrator to narrated (both being the same person) to stress how old Billy Pilgrim the veteran is an entirely different person than the suicidal Billy Pilgrim, the one who marched and walked “bobbing up-and –down, up-and-down…” (Vonnegut Pg. 65).

The transition between narrator can also be found within Dante’s Inferno when Dante the writer makes a side note on what he describes to be occurring to Dante he who journeyed through Hell. Although Dante the writer and Dante the traveler’s messages are conveyed via the same narrator’s position (first-person), there is an obvious change in tone and emotions among the variation of speaker, making the author mark the importance of the change that Dante underwent on his journey through the darkness. Dante the traveler is a more fearful and perplexed character, saying how he is one who “even as one who dreams that he is dreaming that he is harmed and, dreaming, wishes he were dreaming, thus desiring that which is, as if it were not…” (Dante. Inferno Canto 30.136-138). While Dante the trekker is so, Dante the writer is more narcissistic, trait which can be observed in reference to Dante’s description of the snakes and Florentine Thieves’ metamorphosis: “Let Lucan now be silent, where he sings of sad Sabellus and Nasidius, and wait to hear what flies off from my bow… Let Ovid now be silent…if his verse has made of one a serpent, one a fountain, I do not envy him; he never did transmute two natures, face to face, so that both forms were ready to exchange matter” (Dante. Inferno. Canto 15.97-102). Hence, we see two very different narrators who, although they speak in the same person and of the same person and are the same person, are so describing the physical and mental change of one being, as in Slaughter House-Five.

Finally, even though the different narrators in these works show the transformation of one being, we must not fail to notice the transformation of the writer as he describes his hardships, how they have shaped him, and how he continues to be shaped through his solemn recollection. Remembering the past is not consistently simple, but it must be done in order to change oneself, especially for the better.

Snobbism: Our Society's Epitaph

I believe that everyone is with me on this when I state that one of the most despicable traits is a person is snobbism. The sight of someone disgracing their potential by believing they can order others around to do their tasks vexes me. I feel sorry for such people: Not only are they becoming a pain to be around by expecting that their “superiority” is enough to entitle them to ultimate command over others, but they are surrendering their life’s potential by capitulating to their own laziness.

When a person (commonly a teenager) commands a maid to carry out an obviously simple task they themselves could do, what is that person thinking? For instance, when someone asks their maid to make them another dish upon seeing that the one available is either “unacceptable” or “disgustful”, that person isn’t considering the amount of energy that required to make it. That person is being supremely ungrateful and that fills me with disgust. It spites me so, that upon experiencing such act being carried out, my image of that person immediately changes. I believe that a person who is tortured by lethargy and doesn’t attempt to be rid of it is condemned to a life of inutility.

The thought of a person who, defeated by his laziness, relies on “superiority” to command harshly entrust others to carry out their tasks makes me sick at the stomach. What vexes me even more is the fact that those snobs believe that they have the right to act the way they do. In my opinion, the idiosyncrasy of thinking that others can and should do one’s tasks is inherited and often promoted by the parents. As the ultimate role models of every person, parents have the dire responsibility to act respectfully towards others. When a child is seen showing signs of contempt towards others, everyone around him/her, their parents, in particular, should reprimand the act, explaining how such behavior is the pitfall of human behavior in society. Instead, most parents are afraid of scolding their children in fear of being marked as extremists or controllers. As long as people act contemptuously towards others, it shall be ever-more difficult to summon the energy required for the most simple of tasks. They will alienate others and will become lazy, wasting their lives in hoping that others will work for them.

Neat Torturing

I visited Spain on the summer of 2008. One of the cities I went to was Toledo, capital of swordsmanship, Don Quixote, and warfare. During my short stay at this city, I went to a Torture Museum. Honestly, I have to say that not only was it excruciatingly gruesome, but also creative. For instance, one of the inventions forced the person into a cage, where they would be curled into a ball for days. They would starve to death after their limbs live immense pain due to the cramps of the unchanging position. The amount of imagination required for the construction of these contraptions is astounding.

There is one repercussion that war is known to have on its participants: To dehumanize them making them amoral. For instance, the Roland Weary character described in chapter two of Slaughter House-Five by Kurt Vonnegut depicts a mind ravaged by social alienation due to his uncommon set of principles. He would strike any one who befriended him, given the time. The violent Weary feels that the only means through which he can connect to people is physically, brutally. The savage Weary shows his degree of morals when he glorified the idea of “…sticking a dentist’s drill into a guy’s ear” (Vonnegut Pg. 36). The “neat tortures” (Vonnegut Pg. 36) he describes are in fact truly macabre. His stripped moralities tear at the very essence of the peaceful spirit, making a true barbarous warrior.

When going to war, nations must have in mind the effects of the battle difficulties and their toll on the soldiers, and how those traumatized people will end up returning to their Patria. What is the cost of victory? I believe that no war leaves any contending side triumphant, however happy the returning fighters might seem to be.