Zaphod for President

I realize this post is already more than a week late, and that Kurt Vonnegut is already up in heaven right now. Truth be told, I’ve been having a hard time deciding what to write. Everytime I go to proofread this post, I find it riddled with cliches. This is undeserving of Kurt Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut didn’t rely on cliches- he invented them.

Therefore, I will skip all the cutesy in-jokes (except that “heaven” crack above) and share an irrelevant, yet honest, regret.

I wish I had written to Kurt Vonnegut before he died. In retrospect, I had no reason not to, except for some undefined fear of pestering him. Perhaps he and I could have been grand pen-pals. Perhaps he might have shared with me personalized genius, unavailable in a common novel. More likely, my letter would have been ignored, and caused no harm to either of us.

This, most likely, is the reason I never wrote him. This is my fear defined. How vain! How arrogant! How delightfully human of me.

Point at me and laugh. It’s ok, I’m laughing too. Repeat with me:

“Why would Kurt Vonnegut write you back? You are just a random clump of mass and energy bumbling around the world in a desperate attempt to learn something before you drop dead.”

It has been said that the truth hurts. I disagree. When shared with the wit and candor of Kurt Vonnegut, the truth is warm and fuzzy, and tastes better than cherry cola and candy bars. When we face our failures with smiles instead of grimaces, when we accept the inevitable losses, when we simply get over ourselves, we can begin to enjoy our lives unconstrained by our own denial. It is the difference between masturbation and sex, which is to say, a life without denial is a life divine.

I am far from divine. Hell- I’m still upset that a dead guy never got a letter I didn’t send. But I am laughing, and laughing at myself, so I can’t be all bad. And the next time you do something stupid, you might try to laugh at yourself too. Once you can get over that initial pride, you will see that you are quite a silly thing indeed, and deserving of laughter, not scorn.

Hey, how about that? I think I learned something, without a letter, and without dropping dead!

God Bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.

You will be missed.

P.S. Ha ha! This post is still filled with cliches! (I fail again). Ha ha!

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