Where There Is Life There Is Hope

Where There Is Life There Is Hope

"Where there is life there is hope," is what was written about me in my 1961-62 high school yearbook. I'm not sure quite what was meant by that, but it was brought to mind after reading Kurt Vonnegut's book, Hocus Pocus.

"Where there is life there is hope." So says John Gay in the Atheist's Bible (by Joan Konner).
"What a starry-eyed optimist!" says Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut enlisted the U.S. Army, served in Europe and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. After this battle, he was captured and became a prisoner of war. He was in Dresden, Germany, during the Allied firebombing of the city, and saw the complete devastation caused by it. Vonnegut himself only escaped harm because he, along with other POWs, was working in an underground meat locker making vitamins.

As a satirical writer, war remained a recurring element in his work and seemed to draw some of its dramatic power from his own experiences. One of his characters, Billy Pilgrim, from Slaughterhouse Five has encounters with aliens from Tralfamador.

Not only does Vonnegut rely on his own experiences in his writing he allows us to hear his thoughts while writing such as the quote from Breakfast of Champions (1973) where he says as follows:

"This is a very bad book you're writing," I said to myself.
"I know," I said.
"You're afraid you'll kill yourself the way your mother did," I said.
"I know," I said.

Despite his success, Kurt Vonnegut wrestled with his own personal demons. Having struggled with depression on and off for years, he attempted to take his own life in 1984. He died on April 12, 2007, at the age of eighty-four as a result of head injuries sustained in a fall at his home in New York. "So it goes."1

Each time we allow ourselves to fall asleep we act on faith, or relinquish all responsibility. We expect that we will awaken safely in the morning, or we turn ourselves over to the fiends of the night and hope for the best roller coaster ride we have ever experienced.

Is it better to be a cynic or an optimist, or allow that there is a wide gray area in-between? I always question; perhaps that shows my insecurity. Yet, how can we feel secure about anything. We never know all the facts and even if we did, they are changing all the time. The best we can do is to fully understand our own particular viewpoint and make the best decision we can at the time, even if it is no decision at all. We can always fall back on the theme of the 1976 John Candy movie, "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time."

Perhaps Kurt Vonnegut's Tralfamadorians were his way of allowing for the unexplainable. Vonnegut was a
follower of Humanism, a moral philosophy that places humans as primary, in range of importance. It is a perspective common to a wide range of ethical stances that attaches importance to human dignity, concerns, and capabilities, particularly rationality.

Van Morrison expresses similar thoughts in his lyrics "Days Like This":

When everyone is up front and they're not playing tricks
When you don't have no freeloaders out to get their kicks
When it's nobody's business the way that you wanna live
I just have to remember there'll be days like this

When no one steps on my dreams there'll be days like this
When people understand what I mean there'll be days like this
When you ring out the changes of how everything is
Well my mama told me there'll be days like this

I agree with much of Humanist and Libertarian philosophy and especially like the following definition by Dr. Kenneth Bisson:2

"Libertarianism is what your mom taught you: behave yourself and don't hit your sister."

I dislike labels such as Humanist, Liberal or Libertarian. They seem like boxes designed for discrimination. Groucho Marx sent the following wire to a Hollywood club he had joined: "Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”

I'm not excessively sympathetic toward those who claim to be underprivileged or exploited, however I'm against corruption, racism, sexism and inequality. I'm one of the original hippies. I'm against telemarketers, pan-handlers and people asking for donations by telephone or at the door, in fact I seldom answer the telephone or the door. I have a telephone answering service and anyone wishing to come to my door is welcome to phone and make an appointment. I don't consider myself a recluse, I simply have a life and don't wish to have it interrupted needlessly. I'm always busy doing something, or else I'm busy doing nothing. In either case it requires my undivided attention.

This has been my rant for the time being. Remember, where there is life there is hope. After that is Tralfamador, or you can fill in the blanks. Please tune in next time when I'm sure I will have something entirely different to rant about. If you have comments, suggestions or disagreements please let me know. I will be pleased to discuss them with you, or not.

Footnotes
1  "Its combination of simplicity, irony, and rue is very much in the Vonnegut vein.
2  http://www.libertarianism.com/definitions.htm