[I wrote this post a few days ago, and it seems appropriate after the events of April 16 at Virginia Tech. I'm thankful that my niece is safe. I'm sad for the families of those who died and were injured. Why can't we all be kind to each other? And why can't we have better gun control laws in this country?] / April 2007
One of the things I keep reading about Kurt Vonnegut is his wise insistence that people be kind to one another. It seems to run counter to the current climate in our world, but is in keeping with what I was taught as a child. Parents, aunts, and uncles were always telling us kids to be nice to one another.
To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine,” summed up his philosophy:
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”.
~ New York Times