Knowing and Losing

What terrifies us most are not things themselves, but our view and notion of them. We do not fear death because it is death, but because it is unknown to us, and we therefore imagine it as many different things. We don’t know what to expect in the face of death, and that is frightens us most. This is what section five is discussing. Section eight is one that also caught my attention, for in one line, I saw laid out before me the cynical thoughts and ideas of Epictetus. “Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.” (Epictetus, 8).I strongly disagree with what he is saying here, for I believe that if we took everything as it came then there would be no mystery to life. If everything resulted as expected, or if we simply accepted all that resulted, then living would be boring, meaningless. Intrigue would be a foreign subject, and along with it all of life’s excitement. This is a way in which I believe the handbook can be related to what we saw in Slaughterhouse Five. The Tralfamadorians, through their fourth dimension see life as it is meant to be and cannot be changed; there is no mystery to it. Knowing it all causes us to lose hope, to see no prospect. There is no point in living if we already know what will happen, and this is why I disagree with Epictetus and particularly his eighth section.