commentary
(0)My great-uncle was rich by way of 100 acres of land beside a lake. His father gave him both the land and his name, Jackson. He was my grandmother's brother, kind and humble. His fortune never ruined his character, though it easily could have with other men. He was a millionaire for certain by the time he reached fifty. Just before his eighty-sixth birthday he died of heart failure.
There was nothing in his will for anyone. I got nothing, my father got nothing. His brothers and sons and daughters got nothing. The thing was, he had given away all his riches while he still breathed. I think he turned most of it into silver dollars while I was a boy; he always put one in my hand when he would see me in his fields or at church.
One time, just before his heart failed, he came around with his old truck. He had driven that truck for twenty-five years, longer than I'd been alive. It was rusty and the horn didn't work. I took my seat and he slowly wheeled us to town. We went to the Deluxe Grill and had corn dogs. We talked about Ronald Reagan and baseball.
Kurt Vonnegut died last night. I found out this morning from Kate's away message on AIM, which read: "Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep," a quote from Cat's Cradle.
I have little time to write, although a year might only be adequate to summarize the influence and adoration associated, for me, with Kurt Vonnegut. He was one of my first favorite authors. To this day he has remained so. He was intelligent, funny, wise, and beautiful, as far as I can tell. His books inspire me so much.
Kurt Vonnegut said of the arts:
"They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."
I've always wished I could have had dinner with the man so we could talk. We have a lot in common.
Since I'm going to be late for class already, I'll simply give you some quotes to chew on. Here are those smarts I was talking about, mixed with loving cynicism and political insight:
History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.
Let us devote to unselfishness the frenzy we once gave gold and underpants.
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.
Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery.
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
The only difference between [George W.] Bush and [Adolf] Hitler is that Hitler was elected.
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.
What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.
Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.
Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler.
Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.
How embarrassing to be human.
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
Poo-tee-weet?
Obviously, he had strong opinions about the war. I considered leaving these out because they might turn some people off, but I realized that was silly. I agree with most of the things he said in his last book, A Man Without A Country, which I read for the fourth time last month. It's full of great stuff.
I remember him as a person upset with how men have acted over history and failed to learn from their multitudes of mistakes. His cynical side often took over in his output, but he used that as an instrument to creatively express his very sincere care. He wanted a better world, without war, hate, poverty. He knew what a long shot that is, but strove for it anyway. That's the best kind of man.
If anyone should have lived for a couple hundred years, it should have been Kurt Vonnegut, though I'm not sure he would agree. I wanted thirty or forty more books. I'm sad he's gone.
However.
"When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes'.''
Kurt Vonnegut is still alive and just as disgusted with civilization as he ever was. I just need to read his books, and there he is.
My first class on Thursday mornings is England since 1688. We recently read essays by John Stuart Mill, whom I like a lot, and whose work is similar to the ideas I wrote about last summer. In our most recent test, we were to write an essay about Mill's On Liberty. I defended Mill's ideas as I always did in class. And, as in most class sessions, it seemed a majority were against me. Dr. Kruse made me read my essay and the class discussed Mill afterward. Somehow, the issue of flag burning came up. Naturally, I defended it as within a person's rights, though it is a stupid way to demonstrate your feelings. I basically said that, for starters, a flag is one's personal property, which he or she can do with as they wish. This doesn't mean they can burn someone else's flag or burn it on another's property or in a dangerous manner. Secondly, I see the flag as part of a civil religion—nationalism, I suppose. I try not to get too caught up in symbols, as they lead to trouble. As with the flag, for example, people often lose and construe the true meanings of things. Therefore, thirdly and most obviously, the flag represents the rights America offers. If someone wants to spit on it or chooses not to recognize it during the National Anthem, that's fine. I'm not saying I necessarily like those ideas, just that an American has that freedom. I think any intelligent or well-informed American would understand this reality.
After my comments, I was promptly stomped into the mud by patriots. Seriously, there was a small uproar. After further discussion I was so frustrated that I left class. I didn't mind that they disagreed with me, but that it seemed almost impossible for my ideas to be heard in a fair manner. By this I don't mean that I wasn't allowed to voice my opinion—I was, even after my perceived unpatriotic speech—but that some people are so unwilling to hear ideas that counter their own. One conservative classmate in particular would probably not take a liberal's opinions seriously if those ideas disagreed with his narrow perspective, no matter how correct the ideas. This is not conducive to democracy and America, which he claims to hold so dear to his heart.
The Soviet Union collapsed because Nate Shaw got into a fight with a Dow Chemical recruiter after he denounced the Vietnam War due to the Quaker principles his father Winston Churchill instilled in him. There. Those are the papers I'm writing over the next two weeks condensed for your pleasure.
