One of the main topics I have recurrently seen in my readings is how bad events can completely transform an individual and their life. I have noticed a pattern in the ideas of Vonnegut, Epictetus and Voltaire pertaining to the concept of predestination, the way by which they understand and accept the horrible event of their lives. An example of this is when Candide concludes “that all is for the best in this world of ours” (27). We can see how Voltaire accepts the events that happen in a human being as meant to be. This takes some guilt off any decisions an individual has made, making it an easier to be in an appreciative and more open state of mind towards life. This is another topic we have been hearing a lot about in class, the way by which our decision opportunities become a burden after we have decided what to do. This looking back into the past is what is described all over Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, the immortality of events and the way by which you can see your life as a positive whole due to its composition of a substantial quantity of good events compared to the not so good ones.
We are told through the words of Pangloss that “the same causes produce the same effects” (34). We are shown the example of a natural disaster that affects two cities thousands of kilometers apart, Lisbon and Lima. This gives us the possibility to understand that fate is indifferent to language, religion, social status or political tendencies, it is a factor that affects us all. It is this same cause, the necessity of events happening for the better that will always give the result of change, for good or bad. This is an interesting idea Voltaire exposes as the reader can get the whole picture, the idea of having an entity of life factor that determines the course of our life without distinction.
Accepting the path we are destined to take isn’t an easy thing. Voltaire shows another part of this philosophy as he states that “private misfortunes contribute to the general good, so that the more private misfortunes there are the more we find that all is well” (31). This plays with the human tendency to compare the actions and events that happen in each individual with the other. By being able to have other misfortunes worse than ours and by having the possibility of being able to compare our own to theirs, and yet know that it was all fated, we are free of the responsibility of carrying all misfortune on our shoulders. It is a mental liberation that seems to be theoretically effective, but are we truly able to surrender all our thoughts of having the opportunity to be better every day? Can we live without hoping and possibly creating a better destiny for ourselves, others and our planet?
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