Sometimes we pray, we wish, or we pledge for our lives to improve. We ask that guy up there for a better destiny, to forgive us for our actions, etc. While we live our consequential stream of events in life, were the result of one event affects directly on the next, we believe that any wrong decision can completely change our fate. Our fate is to find the meaning of our life, to keep that hope alive, but when life’s meaningless the whole point of prayer and destiny is another story. Billy Pilgrim loses the meaning and understanding of his life as events are inconsequential items in a long stream of memories. His past, present, and future are indifferent to one another, which leads to his inability to change his destiny as his circle of life is already written. “Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future” (Vonnegut 60). Billy lives a cyclical life on a world where everyone believes that time moves in a single linear progress. Humanity doesn’t know the difference between things they can change and things they can’t.
Living in a world were destiny is already predestined, Billy Pilgrim feels “unenthusiastic” about living. He feels indifferent towards the events occurring in his life, because he is living a life that he doesn’t understand. Acts totally apathetic towards the events he faces, the past he already lived, and the future he is waiting to live. Feels alone in this world, because he is living a Tralfamadorian life in a world of “human beings”, and finds in prayer that spirit guide. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference” (Vonnegut 60). Serenity, courage, and wisdom. These three words play similar words on this prayer. He wants to identify that difference between what he can change and what he can’t. By asking for serenity, Billy Pilgrim is submitting himself into apathy or the absence of emotion towards his life. Asking for courage is directly connected to his indifference towards death, which he welcomes openly due to the fact he lives a life that doesn’t have a meaning. But by gaining wisdom he is gaining fear, and losing serenity. When he knows the difference he will fear what he can do and can’t, hence enter into a loop of misunderstanding.
This loop is the cycle he lives in his life. As he closes his eyes, he seals his understanding to the world. He changes moments, and travels to another moment which he might understand, but he only engages into more confusion. Acting for a reason he was ignorant of, “Billy Pilgrim would find himself weeping” (Vonnegut 61), weeping for that missing aspect in his life, that one he cannot find even in the deepest of his past, present, or future. At the end of his life, his understanding won’t be greater, but instead he will keep revolving in that circle that has no beginning or end. “Where have all the years gone?” (Vonnegut 57). He has lived a life without choice. He cannot change anything because even if he tries, destiny is written and can’t be changed. Ask Oedipus, whose actions were useless against destiny. Then, are we living a life at free will?
Living in a world were destiny is already predestined, Billy Pilgrim feels “unenthusiastic” about living. He feels indifferent towards the events occurring in his life, because he is living a life that he doesn’t understand. Acts totally apathetic towards the events he faces, the past he already lived, and the future he is waiting to live. Feels alone in this world, because he is living a Tralfamadorian life in a world of “human beings”, and finds in prayer that spirit guide. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference” (Vonnegut 60). Serenity, courage, and wisdom. These three words play similar words on this prayer. He wants to identify that difference between what he can change and what he can’t. By asking for serenity, Billy Pilgrim is submitting himself into apathy or the absence of emotion towards his life. Asking for courage is directly connected to his indifference towards death, which he welcomes openly due to the fact he lives a life that doesn’t have a meaning. But by gaining wisdom he is gaining fear, and losing serenity. When he knows the difference he will fear what he can do and can’t, hence enter into a loop of misunderstanding.
This loop is the cycle he lives in his life. As he closes his eyes, he seals his understanding to the world. He changes moments, and travels to another moment which he might understand, but he only engages into more confusion. Acting for a reason he was ignorant of, “Billy Pilgrim would find himself weeping” (Vonnegut 61), weeping for that missing aspect in his life, that one he cannot find even in the deepest of his past, present, or future. At the end of his life, his understanding won’t be greater, but instead he will keep revolving in that circle that has no beginning or end. “Where have all the years gone?” (Vonnegut 57). He has lived a life without choice. He cannot change anything because even if he tries, destiny is written and can’t be changed. Ask Oedipus, whose actions were useless against destiny. Then, are we living a life at free will?
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