April 13, 2007

Karass

Some days back, I wrote about learning a new word - tristesse.

A new word for today is karass, which means "a group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident."

The interesting thing is that it is a word Vonnegut created:

In his classic novel Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut explains how the world is divided into two types of social organizations: the karass and the granfalloon..

Well, coincidentally, just this morning after reading about the New Jersey Governor getting into a serious accident en route to moderating a meeting between the Rutgers women's basketball team and radio personality, Don Imus, I was thinking that life is indeed like a movie (Short Cuts & Crash came to mind!).... ..

…..somewhere out there in NJ (not quite LA..but you get the picture), is probably a guy who drives a red pickup who came off the shoulder onto the road too early, causing the aforementioned accident....and who who is working hard to put his child to college, possibly Rutgers. Tonight, he/she will not sleep well!

Oh well… as Vonnegut would say… And so it goes. We are all indeed part of a karass caught up in this existential life to nowhere. Am in a weird musing mood, this Friday evening…as you can tell!

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