Alternative viewpoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHVqxD8PNq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHVqxD8PNq8 But, don't take the speech purely at face value

Alternative viewpoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHVqxD8PNq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHVqxD8PNq8 But, don't take the speech purely at face value -- Adaptation (the movie) leaves it ambiguous about whether this is wisdom, puffery, or accidentally true for the wrong reasons. Also, it should be pointed out that Kurt Vonnegut had the kind of childhood that would probably leave anybody numb to the ups and downs of life, and also lived through the firebombing of a German city. Everything in his oeuvre is about how impotent human stories are, to prepare people for 20th-century scale horror. So take that as you will.