h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There is, of course, the oft-repeated theory that hell is whatever you make it to be - whatever irritates, annoys, angers, frustrates, etc. you the most will be in infinite supply in your personal hell.

I haven't sat down to work out what my own personal hell would be, but I suspect it has something to do with Whitney Houston, antique shopping in Waxhaw North Carolina, mushrooms, and Jerry Springer.

Sartre, in all his Frenchosity, once said, "Hell is other people." ( As many other humorists have pointed out, this was a logical conclusion for him because he was French.) I think Sartre's modern equivalent would be that pretentious gothic chick in everyone's graduating highschool class who shows off her wrist scars, smokes cloves, and pretends to be a lesbian.

Sartre was actually reffering to the on going battle that wages between Being and Being for others. I have to keep pointing this difference out to the boyfriend - it means that the existence of other people makes you question whether or not you are acting in Bad Faith or not and that that self questioning is hell, it does not mean that other people are horrid. Being an existentialist does not necessarily make you a misanthropist. Although I am.

I got more than I bargained for with your reply. I was looking for intelligent conversation and I got in a bit over my head. You've certainly given me something to think about.

My apologies for making you think!!
My apologies for being pretentious.. but ' hell is other people' is a much used yet much misunderstood quote...
And what the hell is smoking cloves about?? Cloves are those smelly things you put in curries and xmas puds yes? Smoking them??

Yes, it can be done. They don't stink quite as much as tobacco, either.

Yes, and in fact clove cigarettes are pretty popular in places like Indonesia and Malaysia. They smell and taste very sweet, and the clove makes your lips go a bit numb (chewing clove is good way to relieve a toothache because it is an anaesthetic).
They probably don't have clove in Hell, I imagine....

I'm sorry. I didn't intend for you to read that as I think you did. I wasn't calling you pretentious, I was just saying that I had never thought of that quote the way you said.

Waxhaw NC? Where is that and what is the significance? Hell is closer to RTP>>>

Yes they do, just more pleasantly than tobacco.

Well, that was sort of what I meant, seeing as how the "unpleasant" part, in my lexicon anyway, is sort of built into the word "stink."

Waxhaw is sorta halfway between Monroe NC and Rock Hill SC. The main downtown stretch is nothing but antique and collectibles shops and homey rustic soda shops which are quaint looking on the outside but not the sort of place you really feel like actually eating in. Personally I don't care much for antique-shopping, although I will tolerate one or two shops at a time. However, the sheer magnitude of Waxhaw's antique district is too much for my poor little noggin to handle, and the three or four times in the past I was dragged there by my parents made in impression on me.

No offense meant to anyone from Waxhaw, or anyone who likes antiques-shopping.

Now the Hell near RTP... are you referring to rush-hour on I-40?

They have a rather nice little hell down in Houston.

Heaven and Hell are the same place.

My idea of Hell would be a bunch of relgious fanatics spending eternity telling me "I Told you so"


I'm sure most relgious fanatics idea of Heaven would be telling a non-believer "I told you so, we're right, you were wrong" constantly for an infinite number of years.
After all , what would be the point of being proved right, if they couldn't be smug about it ?

Hell is a bar located beneath Heaven (also a bar) in the Adams Morgan District of Washington D.C.

But, if you were in Hell, the fanatics would have to be there too, so they would have nothing to gloat about. Or maybe I'm just being polemical.

Their Heaven, your Hell? Maybe it's all a state of mind, and everyone sits around in a neutral Otherworldly plane ..

We are all there now.

You don't have to say anything.

Just say nothing!!