What do you dream of?

In Baghdad, a servant sees Death at the market, who makes a face at him. The servant runs back to his master and asks to borrow a horse to go to the nearest town, Samarra, and avoid Death. When the master returns to the market to confront Death, Death answers that it was a face of surprise, not anger. Death states that he was taken aback when he saw the merchant there, for he had an appointment with him in Samarra later that day. The deep message that is conveyed by this children’s story is that you cannot avoid your destiny, no matter how hard you try. It exemplifies how one often meets his destiny on the road one takes to avoid it. The story reflects the popular belief that existed in the Middle East that fate exists, and it cannot be avoided. It is a story that has created many controversies, due to the fact that it is timeless, and will be continued to be analyzed by many generations to come. Different people have different view
s on this matter, and nobody is right or wrong.

This story exemplifies the Tralfamadorian way of thinking that everything is inevitable. It is like riding a roller coaster, where you know what is going to happen yet can’t do anything to change it. According to the view of life these aliens have, we are simply spectators in our own lives.

This blog post made me truly realize how horrible life would be if this ideology were to be true. People would have no goals or aspirations, and everyone would simply kick back and relax because “it simply is.”(pg. 86). What would we

look forward to if we already knew how everything turned out? We would lose everything we ever had the chance to hope or dream for, and I believe that we would lose the essence of life itself.