God made mud.
Shelly Kagan was on a roll today. The topic: what is a rational emotional response to have towards our own deaths? Should we be angry? Sorrowful? Grateful? He quoted the following poem from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle as an illustration of why we might choose gratitude over anything else. It made my day, so I thought I'd share.
God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
posted by the Assistant at 12:57 PM
2 Comments:
Vonnegut ROCKS, cat's cradle rocks also, especially that bit... so much so that my endeavour to find someone else's thoughts on the subject (well, to avoid working for a couple of minutes) brought me to this dark corner of cyberspace.
Randomly, I recommend Daniel Quinn's 'Ishmael', but only because I just read it, I'll hate it in a matter of weeks. It's about a telepathic gorilla. Yes. A telepathic gorilla! Find other, even more badly written thoughts at www.anthillape.com/wordpress
Was this post really made 4/11/06? Exactly one year prior to Kurt Vonnegut's passing...how bizarre. I will now be reading ahead to see what will happen next week.
There is no replacement for Mr Vonnegut. Sad for the rest of us.
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