#13. We just are, we just be, like rocks beside the road.

I want to part with a quote from the second-best book I've ever read, which I find relative to Vonnegut's mentality of live versus death:

Peace out =)

#12. If you could choose to live forever, would you?

Honestly, I haven't read many books, though this year I've tried to compensate for that. But one book that I did read in my middle school years was Natalie Babbit's Tuck Everlasting. I read it on my own time actually because my then-favorite actress Alexis Bledel had starred in the 2002 film version of it.

Here's a brief summary:

A sheltered little girl named Winnie discovers the Tucks, a family who lives forever because they drank spring water flowing from a beautiful forest tree. She learns of their strange limbo existence and is warned of the disadvantages of immortality. In short time, Winnie becomes accepted and loved by the Tucks in a way that she has never been loved by her own family. She also becomes infatuated with Jesse Tuck, the adolescent son. However, a misunderstanding with the law forces the Tucks to leave town, but not before Winnie is given a bottle of the last of the spring water. However, Winnie does not use the water for herself and naturally dies.

This has a different perspective of the concept of time. When I read S-5, I tried to convince myself that maybe everything does happen all at once. Then I realized it couldn't be. I want to prove this one step further with Tuck Everlasting. Like, what if someone lived FOREVER? How does everything happen all at once for that person?
Though Babbit's work focuses more on why mortality is necessary, it also presents the idea (by using the Tucks) that time is what prevents everything from happening at once. The Tucks teach Winnie why allowing the world immortality would disrupt the balance of life. It would throw human out of the great cycle of life and death, turning them into the equivalent of rocks The cycle of life and death can be LOGICALLY PROVEN. People who believe in reincarnation would also support this belief. And a cycle most certainly does not happen all at once.

"Everything's a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thrush, too. And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way it is."
— Tuck Everlasting

The past comes before the present, the present before the future. Time machines are a figment of the imagination. They will never be invented because Time does not allow us to move in and out of its three states. Time is a funny thing.
Like I hinted in earlier posts, Billy became unstuck in time because he was insane. The best way to cope with tragic happenings is to let go of the memory. If you no longer remember what has happened, you will not make yourself believe that you can revisit it. I could try and try to explain how I think time works, but tehre will be people who will disagree with my opinions. But, Billy was obviously suffering from PTSD, so I don't think he actually did become unstuck in time.
However, Vonnegut's narrative outlook on the matter of death is still relevant. Though a person may be dead, he was alive in many other moments. And some people need that reassurance to move forward with their lives.

Yet, memories mix into one another like liquids as time passes.



#11. No one knows, I realize...

So.

Just a Dream - Nelly

 [2010]

I've had a change of heart. Although a fascinating concept, I don't think one can actually be unstuck in time. I thought maybe, just maybe, everything does happen all at once. But, all delusions aside, time does come and pass. We live then die after all, don't we? And no one is scientifically alive after they are dead.

The song Just a Dream by Nelly cleared the misconception of being unstuck in time. Although I've heard it many times before, when I heard it playing today at Adie-Knox during my swim instructor class, I was also thinking about S-5. Which led me to think about The Great Gatsby (I'll explain the relevance later on).

I was thinking about her,

thinking about me,

thinking about us,

what we gonna be?

Open my eyes, it was only just a dream.

So I travel back, down that road

When she come back?

No one knows, I realize,

It was only just a dream.

I had an epiphany.

For a brief moment, the lyrics made me nostalgic. So I was left to wonder: if everything happens all at once, we would not look back on the past. But we do. We regret certain things for a very long time before we learn to move past them. For some of us, it takes even longer. I don't travel back in time like Billy Pilgrim. And I'm pretty sure no one else does unless the entire world is keeping a secret from me. We can only revisit lost people and places in memories. Some people exist only in our memories, dead or alive. And because memories do exist, and because memories are poignant, life must not happen all at once.

I'm going to bring in an example from The Great Gatsby. The wealthy Jay Gatsby built his adult life around getting back with his ex-flame Daisy Buchanan. He joined the bootlegging business to make the money to impress her. Jay often reflects back to the breezy, calm night that Daisy was in his arms and the two were so in love. Gatsby gave up his morals and involved himself in illicit activities to chase that memory. He was blinded by the past and nourished the dream that he and Daisy could be in love again. Needless to say, that never did happen.

Now I'm in the club thinking all about my baby.

Hey, she was so easy to love.

But wait, I guess that love wasn't enough.

I'm going through it every time that I'm alone

And now I'm missing, wishing she'd pick up the phone.

But she made a decision that she wanted to move on

'Cause  I was wrong.

But let me paraphrase Vonnegut's words and say that the past, present and future has always been, and always will be. Jay Gatsby refused to accept that Daisy would never be able to love him the way he wanted her to, and that led to his untimely death.

I think there is a deeper message in Vonnegut's novel. He wasn't necessarily believing that time happens all at once. If we examine the history of his life, we realize he must have seen some pretty tragic things in his years as a soldier. There are things he wants to forget or wish had never happened. His coping mechanism for those times is to appreciate that although he had awful experiences, he had also experienced miracles and good times. The diamond stone that Billy found in his jacket and his time as a labourer in the malt syrup factory are examples of this. I am going to assume at this point that these events are highly autobiographical. Vonnegut was trying to convey the thought that we shouldn't dwell on what's happened, because it has happened, and always will happen. Fate has control of us in that sense. We shouldn't try to correct the past, but learn to live with it. He took the good and the bad with the mentality that whatever will be, will be.

 If you ever loved somebody put your hands up,

If you ever loved somebody put your hands up

And now they're gone and you wish you could give them everything...