11 Things Nobody Could Say Better Than Kurt

I’ve been having the most horrible kind of writer’s block lately – the kind where you write and write and write, and pages upon pages roll off your fingertips, but the only things that come out are things you wouldn’t want to make your best friend in the entire world sit through.  Self-involved writing.  Of no good use to anyone, probably not even myself.  Not even with expansive editing.

I’ve also been in bed with the flu for pretty much the whole weekend, and I decided to take advantage of my incapacitation by catching up on my reading.  I don’t know if it’s the mental place I’m in, or if I’m just long overdue for a return to one of my favorite men ever, but all I want lately is Kurt Vonnegut.  I’ve placed an order for a few of his books I haven’t read yet, and I read a lot of essays and speeches online.  And I compiled this list  (in reverse order.  I know how people dearly love a good count-down).  If I've got nothing good of my own to say right now, at least I can pass on something that's inspired me. So here they are.  Some of my favorite life lessons.  I genuinely believe every one of these to express something essential and true.  And often kind of funny.  What a guy he was. 

11.  "I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer." 

"What makes you think a writer isn't a drug salesman?" 

10. "It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?"  

9.  "Where do I get my ideas from? You might as well have asked that of Beethoven. He was goofing around in Germany like everybody else, and all of a sudden this stuff came gushing out of him. It was music. I was goofing around like everybody else in Indiana, and all of a sudden stuff came gushing out. It was disgust with civilization."

8.  “Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.”

7.   "We went to the New York World's Fair, saw what the past had been like, according to the Ford Motor Car Company and Walt Disney, saw what the future would be like, according to General Motors. And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep."

6.   "Here is a lesson in creative writing.

First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. 

And I realize some of you may be having trouble deciding whether I am kidding or not. So from now on I will tell you when I'm kidding. 

For instance, join the National Guard or the Marines and teach democracy. I'm kidding. 

We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags if you have them. That always seems to scare them away. I'm kidding. 

If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. 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." 

5.  "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."

4. "A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved." 

3.  "Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think that money was so valuable?" 

2.  "Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - God damn it, you've got to be kind." 

1.  "Until you die .. it's all life."

Thanks, Kurt.  I'll keep trying.

Community, not society

So, from 5000 miles away, all I’ve been hearing about from home is how six people were killed by a hateful, mentally-disturbed man at a public meeting.  And now, in response to the shootings?  Bitter, furious ranting about the cost of vitriol.  Do you not see the irony?  I am all for fighting for causes you believe in, but I’m not behind this brand of finger-pointing.  It’s not productive.  Maybe someone should consider using the national attention to this tragedy to bring up a conversation about gun control.  Want to be angry and bitter and talk about something?  In the most recent study I could find, the United States ranks fourth in the world for murders using firearms.  The second amendment says, and I quote, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” (emphasis mine)  Does this mean anyone has the right to buy any kind of gun anytime they want?  I would argue no.  The closest thing to a well-regulated militia I’ve seen lately are some of the gangs in the inner cities.  I think it’s worth a discussion, at least.  But I’m not writing this to get on my high horse about gun control.  I’m writing this to get on my high horse about power. And I'm not just talking about the U.S. anymore.  I'm talking about everywhere.

I think all the politicians love this debate.  Even the ones who are now being accused of being responsible for the shooting.  Why?  It’s in their interest for people to believe they are indispensible, that they are responsible for something, that if we could only get the right ones in office, they can make things better.  Because if they can’t convince us of that, they have to go and get real jobs.  They spend more time trying to convince us we need them than they spend actually doing anything useful.  Imagine if we lived in a place, a time, where services were traded instead of money.  Who would we value most?  Doctors, sure.  Teachers, trash collectors, farmers.  Politicians?  Bankers?  Lawyers? (sorry, friends, but be honest, most of you hate being lawyers anyway…)  These are phony, invented jobs created to deal with what is essentially an invented, fraudulent concept: wealth.  And what does wealth mean?  What is money?  If it were real, it would be impossible to spend more of it than we earn.  It’s an imaginary concept that people live and die for so that others can have control.  Why are so many places in the world becoming ugly and unmanageable and hateful? Because there are people who have power, and they want to keep it just for the sake of having it. 

Southern Sudanese people have been voting in a referendum all week, regarding their independence from the government of Northern Sudan.  Prior to the 2005 peace treaty, over 2 million people were killed in a long civil war, because the government wanted to try to keep this separation from happening.  Why?  Why would you kill or die to keep people tied to you when they don’t want to be?  Oh, that’s right.  Oil.  Money.  If you really needed the oil, and not just the power to control it, wouldn’t friendly trade be a wiser option?  Less costly, in any way that matters?  There is a new hope now in Southern Sudan.  But it’s not the end of the violence.  People will still fight, and die for that oil.  Over the  drawing of a border.  And it’s nothing new.  Europeans did it to Native Americans, Americans did it to Africans, England did it to Ireland, India, well…just about everyone, and Americans are doing it to Iraqis today. 

People say we need governments to keep the peace, to protect us, but I’m not even so sure of that any more.  This week, in Egypt, thousands of Muslims, dressed in black, turned up to serve as human shields at a Coptic Christmas Eve mass after recent violence against Christians.  Please read about it.  It made me cry.  I think this is the real human nature.  People will step in and take care of each other, if they aren’t being  poked and prodded into feeling threatened all the time.  If they stop to think about how everything you really need, you can have without needing to steal it from someone else.  If they don’t have politicians to tell them that they are on opposite sides, and that someone is trying to “take what is theirs.”  Basically, we need to change our minds and hearts about what’s important.  Networks wouldn’t be selling “vitriolic discourse” if people weren’t buying it.  Complaining about hate-filled rhetoric and pointing fingers isn’t going to change anything.  It  is only selling the same product to the other half of the population.  Why not just turn it off?  Get away from your TV, get away from your job, and talk to people.  Help someone.  Find something, anything, to really love in the world, and stop worrying about what you think someone else has.  If more people take productive steps, I think we really could see change.  

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