“You guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people aren’t going to want to go on living.”

We see humans’ lives as the perfect ones. Most of us see nothing wrong with the way we are supposed to live, as well as the ideals and the rules we must follow. This is because we know no other way.  The Tralfamadorians, however, have a completely different way to live and view life. They see humans’ lives as something despicable.

True, they don’t’ have free will. This would make most people, if given the choice, choose Earth over Tralfmadore. Yet, there has to be a reason as to why, even though he’s living in a cage and watched all the time, Billy doesn’t like Earth any better than Tralfmadore.

We have gotten used to policies and restraints that would make no sense to any outsider. We are used to a life where we have to go to school in order to get into a university. But why do we have to go to a university? To be able to get a good job. We get a good job to live a good life. Yet, we have to spend all our time working and most people are not able to fully take advantage of what they have. They work, work, work. Always trying to get a better life, but then they die without ever being able to make good use of what they had. So it goes.

At the prison camp, Billy is asked how he lost his boots… only to realize he has no idea. For many, this would be strange and dumb. “Why doesn’t he remember? It was only a few weeks ago”, many would think. Some would even dare to diagnose him with memory diseases. Yet, I have learned from experience that it is hard to remember occurrences from traumatic events. I was at my club, El Nogal, when the bomb occurred. After almost twelve years, there are many details I can’t remember from this experience.  My memories are blurry and there are portions from that episode where I'm not aware of what happened. I can’t even recall how I got from a place to another in many cases. In fact, to fill in the empty spaces in my memory, I had to ask my family and my housekeeper about what they remembered. There is no way I could have recalled everything on my own. This is probably what happened to Billy after such shocking experiences at war.  It is something completely understandable in such circumstances.

While Billy is at the prison camp, he meets Edgar Derby. Derby expected to have become a commander or somebody important in the army by then, but he was a simple soldier, recognized by nobody. I believe this is my biggest fear. It would completely break me to reach an age where I thought I would have everything, and have nothing. I would feel like I’ve failed. This reminds me of a new song by Coldplay called “Paradise.” It’s about a woman who as a girl thought she would have everything when she grew up. However, she let life pass her by and then, the only way to get the life she always wanted, was in her dreams. I honestly hope this doesn’t happen to me. It would tear me apart. To avoid this, I must have clear priorities and live a good life. But, what is a good life?