So It Goes...

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday at the age of 84.

I'm a huge Vonnegut fan. I read Slaughterhouse-Five in high school (for my Junior year English class no less). I absolutely loved the sci-fi juxtapositioned against war torn Dresden. During high school I struggled quite a bit (like pretty much every other teenager) with the usual things as well as health issues. Because of everything going on, I often felt as if I were watching myself go through life from another plane, and Vonnegut's writing in Slaughterhouse-Five spoke to that and put words to what I had never been able to describe. I always felt "unstuck in time." Vonnegut, through the Trafalmadorians, likened human life in moments of time to "bugs trapped in the amber of the moment". And that time is unmoving, like a mountain range; each individual point in time at a distinct place on the range that cannot be changed. Life and death are just part of it all.

Vonnegut clearly did not believe in free will. I don't really know where I stand on that; I never have been able to come to a clear decision. But all too often, the refrain "So it goes" seems to sum it all up. Things just happen.

"So it goes," Kurt Vonnegut.