Time, Free Will, and Such
Lately I've been trying to finish Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. After reading Breakfast of Champions, I was enamored by him, but it turns out that his other writings weren't as humorous. The book was marketed as one of the few books revealing the atrocity of the bombing of Dresden, Germany, but that was not the thing that really struck me. The discussion of time was extremely interesting. Every moment of time had already been laid out, and things would always be the same, like "bugs in amber." By itself, it may not be that significant, but I also started reading Bhagavad-Gita, a "gospel" of Hinduism. In an example, a warrior was told to not mourn for the men who would soon kill in the ensuing battle because the men were already slain since it was meant to be. We merely perceive that we are the doer of an action, but it is only a change in the perception of our senses. In the end, everything is all the same such as when one looks as a human, death is only a change of body like changing from infancy to childhood to adulthood. The matter of time is remarkable because it also talks about the permanency of a person. If we exist, we never cease to be, much like in Slaughterhouse where death is merely a bad moment for that person who is perfectly fine in other moments.
Well, with all this, it brings up the question of whether or not we have free will. Going by the Slaughterhouse idea, events already have occurred and are unchangeable. Can we choose to give up in order to change life's direction, or has it already been planned out that we will give up? From the Gita, it seems as if nothing you do really matters since the universe is essentially the same forever. It is also the "pitcher is broken when it is made" mentality. What does a human life really matter in the whole scheme of things? Human minds really are too small to fully grapple all this stuff.
I'm not entirely clear on the message in Bhagavad-Gita, but it is nice to contemplate it. I really appreciate for cutting a lot of the clutter in religion. I've been a staunch hater of Christianity and pretty much every other organized religion for quite a while because I hate their dogmas. However, the essential ideas presented in the book are more plausible. I have seen some flaws, but I will try to not pick at all of them. Of course, whenever I get into religion that preaches "the right way" to live, I always ask myself whether it is really worth it to try. After all, the "right" thing usually involves a life deprived of most of life's pleasures. I'm not sure how frequent sex or masturbation could coexist with a life dedicated to denying the senses, but from what I've noticed, sex drives may not dry up until far into the fifties or even more. Hmm... eternal salvation from suffering or a constant yo-yo between pleasure and pain? It may sound ridiculous, but it's really a dilemma!
Well, with all this, it brings up the question of whether or not we have free will. Going by the Slaughterhouse idea, events already have occurred and are unchangeable. Can we choose to give up in order to change life's direction, or has it already been planned out that we will give up? From the Gita, it seems as if nothing you do really matters since the universe is essentially the same forever. It is also the "pitcher is broken when it is made" mentality. What does a human life really matter in the whole scheme of things? Human minds really are too small to fully grapple all this stuff.
I'm not entirely clear on the message in Bhagavad-Gita, but it is nice to contemplate it. I really appreciate for cutting a lot of the clutter in religion. I've been a staunch hater of Christianity and pretty much every other organized religion for quite a while because I hate their dogmas. However, the essential ideas presented in the book are more plausible. I have seen some flaws, but I will try to not pick at all of them. Of course, whenever I get into religion that preaches "the right way" to live, I always ask myself whether it is really worth it to try. After all, the "right" thing usually involves a life deprived of most of life's pleasures. I'm not sure how frequent sex or masturbation could coexist with a life dedicated to denying the senses, but from what I've noticed, sex drives may not dry up until far into the fifties or even more. Hmm... eternal salvation from suffering or a constant yo-yo between pleasure and pain? It may sound ridiculous, but it's really a dilemma!