Dear Friends,
It’s been a while. I’ve been bad. I don’t write like I should.
Tonight, I just wanted to share with you the joys of a little book called Cat’s Cradle. It’s was written by Kurt Vonnegut many moons ago during the Cold War when fear was rampant. Most everyone thought someone somewhere would do something stupid and wipe us all off the face of the earth. The book is satire.
I propose that the book be required reading in high school and again in college-even technical and business colleges- along with the Bible (that will have to be another post). Cat’s Cradle deals with human stupidity and focuses on two main topics humans use to explain things, but never truly understand: science and religion. It’s apocalyptic.
The book features the dysfunctional family of one of the men who created the atom bomb, a writer researching the family, an island dictatorship, and a made-up religion called Bokononism. Verse 1 in the Books of Bokonon states, “All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.” A scientist in the book states, “New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.” Throw in some greed, lust, midgets, and dark humor and you’ve got a damn good story we should all learn from in the age of terrorism. Find a used copy and read it.
A famous calypso from Books of Bokonon featured in Cat’s Cradle:
Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, “Why, why, why?”
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy,
W. Knut
