The New "So It Goes"

There are things we can't understand. Why are innocent souls the victims of war? Why does death take young children's lives? All these painful events are unexplainable. We can't assure why they happen. We don't have the free will to decide what will and won't happen, but we can change our perspective on things. In Slaughterhouse-five, the Tralfamadorian's coped with death with their "so it goes". They understood we could live forever in the past. In Candide, we also find a way to cope with death. This time the philosopher isn't a two feet high, green looking creature. It's Pangloss, Candide's tutor. As stated in previous blogs, Pangloss strongly believes everything has a purpose of being: "legs are clearly intended for breeches, so we wear them. Stones were made for carving and building houses, and that is why my lord has the most beautiful house ... And since pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round" (p.20). When James, the Anabaptist falls into the sea, and Candide goes after him, Pangloss stops him "by proving that Lisbon harbour was made on purpose for this Anabaptist to drown there" (p.33). Pangloss' philosophy is somewhat different to the one of the Tralfamadorians. Pangloss simply resigns. I believe he's scared of failing. For example, if he had a relative with cancer, he would probably say: "cancer was made on purpose for my relative to get it." Instead of fighting against it, he would just accept it and move on.

I wonder what that would feel like. Knowing you could have fought against something and you didn't. What if everyone was like this? What if we all resigned to death? The thing is, we actually do, in some way. I know I'm about to contradict what I said earlier, but that's my mind right now; a web of contradicting ideas. We know there are people dying of hunger, people being killed and tortured. But the only thing we do is ask why these things happen. It would be nice to stop playing the victims and actually do something for a change. What if we did have the free will to decide what happened? But wait, if we did, we would be playing God, wouldn't we? I take that back. Here it is: we don't have the free will to decide who will fall in the sea, but we do have the free will to try and save that person. We do have the free will to decided how we solve problems. But we don't have the free will to decide who will get cancer, and who will die from it.

There is no such thing as absolute free will. It all depends. Since we don't have complete power, we have to bury our grief in phrases like "so it goes" or "that was it's purpose of being."