Pity For The Blind That See It All

In chapter two of the book we see the beginning of the narrative of the book our main character in the first chapter is talking about. Probably not the one about the bombing but maybe about other more important things to him. (Since he found enough things to say to make this book he probably thought it was more important) This leads us to our first encounter with Trafalgarians. These are more advance beings from another planet very far away from earth. The most important thing about them was that "they could see in four dimensions. They pitied Earthlings
for being able to see only three." (p.9)

The fourth dimension is time. They repeatedly say that these aliens could travel in time and see what was going on on different moments. Although this might look like freedom it is possible that the deeper meaning to this is that they are trapped. They are trapped in places we know very well which are the past and the future. We can see through our memories what has happened and through our imagination and estimates what will happen. It might not be in the literal way though which Trafalgarians are able to travel but it works in a very similar kind of way. In then end it is very possible that these aliens might be able to move through time but that doesn't let them stay in the present. Since they are able to travel so easily through time then why would they choose to be in a sad and painful present when they could be happy in a perfect past or future? It is very possible that that is what they are doing already although, that is just a human's point of view. It is possible that they are so advanced that even with the option of living in the past they continue to choose the future.

This made me think of another detail to support my idea of humans being able to travel through time with similar results to those of Trafalgarians. "And so on. Billy says that he first came unstuck in time in 1944, long before his trip to Tralfamadore. The Tralfamadorians didn't have anything to do with his coming unstuck They were simply able to give him insights into what was really going on." (p.11)

Billy can probably be seen as a part of humanity, as something that everyone has. It is very possible that all of us have become unstuck in time in the sense that we can all remember and imagine. Although it has some limitations and it isn't the exact way the book describes time travel the results are similar. The difference between Billy and every other human around is that we don´t have Trafalgarians to explain to us how this ability of time travel is and how we are supposed to use it.

Finally, we see that even with all of this time travel life isn't about getting to something: it isn't about the beginning or the end. According to the book life is about the journey we go through as we see in this quote: "He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all the events in between."

Billy has no control over when he will appear in time and because of this it has to be more probably to fall into a point during his life that isn't his birth or his death. From this fact I infer that what he is being shown is the journey of his life not really as much how it begun or ended. Because that is what is being shown to him most of the time I believe that it is the most important part of life at least for this book. In the end I have gotten the message that being in the past or future can be fine for a while but in the end it is the journey, and what you did in it, that really matters. In the end, we are blinded from the truly important things because our ability to see the past and future so clearly.