Books: “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” by Douglas Adam

I thought the vastness of the Universe might put our recent lock-down living into perspective. Surprisingly (or improbably??) in Adam’s Galaxy, there are just as much, if not more of, bureaucratic blunders. Those who study the endless ripples of cause and effect, would say, “it’s just life.”

An improbable outcome turning reality, is well…improbable. But the happenings of improbable events were the reasons behind Arthur Dent’s (and co’s) continuous survival; the concept of improbability, therefore, became synonymous to ‘fate,’ or ‘destiny.’ Perhaps life on Earth was really improbable, and therefore, meant to be.  But of course, if we ever get stuck on the bigger questions as to why we are here…all we have to remember is that the answer is: 42.

“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars then anything else in the history of creation.”

“and we’ll be saying a big hello to all intelligent life forms everywhere…and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.”

“…they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics – as if relationships between people were susceptible to the same laws that governed the relationships between atoms and molecules.”

“Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting. Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity – distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless.”

“’You know,’ said Arthur thoughtfully, ‘all this explains a lot of things. All through my life I’ve had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was.’ ‘No,’ said the old man, ‘that’s just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that.’’