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Was life that dull, that boring and humdrum for people? He hated to think of his own life stretching ahead of him that way, a long succession of days and nights that were fine, fine—not good, not bad, not great, not lousy, not exciting, not anything.

This quote from Chapter 9 accompanies the reader's first introduction to Jerry's father. Jerry's father plays a curiously small role in the book, and this quote helps explain why. This quote also exemplifies the reason Jerry ultimately decides to disturb the universe. His father is an example of someone who does not and will not disturb the universe. His father goes about each day in the same way, working, coming home, and napping. There is nothing to celebrate or be happy about, but there is nothing to bemoan or be upset about. Jerry feels that his father lives in this strange stasis between emotions, and that makes him slightly less than human. Despite that condition preventing his father from feeling much pain, that condition makes the life Jerry's father is living not much of a life at all. Even though Jerry knows that disturbing the universe might result in bad days, painful times and difficult consequences, he chooses to do it simply because it reflects that he is alive and can think for himself.

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