When I first encountered Billy Pilgrim and his strange life of jumping between past experiences, I was a little confused and it took me a bit to get oriented with the way that Billy lives his life. Once I had a better grasp for Billy's "schizophrenic" jumps throughout history, I noticed that, although Billy experiences the events the same way every time, the narration that occurs sort of "in his mind" is very passive about everything nearly to the point of being apathetic.
I was surprised at first that Billy could experience such horrors as the firebombing of Dresden, the prisoner of war marches, and even simply living, or perhaps more aptly put, surviving, in the German prisoner of war camps, with so little emotion attached. He must have felt something right? But today's discussion about the Tralfamadorian perspective on life, made me think that perhaps he had adopted some of their philosophy.
The Tralfamadorians seem to know possess the ability to see the passage of time from an outside perspective, as they are "4th-dimensional." As a result they know how the Universe ends (by their own hand) but do nothing to deter this event from happening. As one of the aliens tells Billy (referring to their own pilot who ignites the Universe), "He has always pressed [the button], and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way." Knowing how it all ends, the aliens have adopted a very peaceful, passive mindset. Whatever happens, happens. No matter what you do, it will always happen.
If Billy has indeed adopted this mindset, this would explain his perceived "lack of emotion" is really just Billy's passivity to all of the events in his life, since he already knows how it all ends. I believe that Billy calls attention to this fact when he uses the phrase "So it goes," which often follows an event in which someone dies, or some tragedy occurs.
This whole new mindset that Vonnegut presents, begs the question of whether or not it can be applied to everyday human life. Obviously the average person hasn't become "unstuck in time" like Billy Pilgrim has, but is there a place for a more passive way of thinking about things. In Billy's case he seems to apply this especially to situations of suffering or hardship, and I wonder if there is an application for this in someone's everyday life. Now, I'm not saying that we should be reacting to wars, deaths, and tragedies with "so it goes," but perhaps a more relaxed mindset would foster new ideas and maybe even help create different ways of approaching issues. Or maybe I'm reading too much into the fictional alien race that lives on Tralfamadore.
