It seems as though all we hear on the news lately is bad news. So it goes, right? After all, if we took to heart all the tragedies that occur everyday in the world we'd never get out of bed in the morning. We would have an overload of grief so heavy that we'd probably all die of a broken heart. What we sometimes forget is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Likewise, every time someone dies another is born. Every time a marriage ends in divorce, a newlywed couple celebrates their honeymoon somewhere else in the world. The world is in a constant state of renewal. So why do we only notice the bad things? Probably because we're human. Even though the bulk of our problems are self-inflicted or man-made, they still come as a shock to us nearly every time. We have created an absurd time to live in. So now what? How do we deal with it? How should we react to the horrors of war, heartache, and famine? Do we try to solve our problems all at once, or do we sit back and watch things fall apart? Kurt Vonnegut has an interesting idea of what to do, as is shown in his novel, Slaughter House Five. Vonnegut's prescription for dealing with the tragic absurdity of the twentieth century is to simply not deal with it. In his novel, Vonnegut shows that he is more inclined to sit back and watch than to let things effect him. Being an anti-war novel, his book is filled with shocking events and gruesome deaths. But Vonnegut portrays death as something trivial. Every time someone dies or something bad happens where the reader might think "oh my gosh, that's awful!" Vonnegut says, "so it goes." It's as if he saying that that kind of thing happens all the time and since no one can stop it we shouldn't get all worked up about it. But he goes to the extent to make the reader think he doesn't care. When he reacts this way up to four times in one page, it's like he's suggesting we glaze over the horrible moments as ...
