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

In reverse order:

'"None of these things really matter"... hmm. Did you mean to say it like that?'

Er, yeah. How good I am at snowboarding, how good I am at windsurfing, how good *I* imagine I am at my job compared to how good I'd LIKE to be - why would these things matter? As long as I'm good enough to enjoy snowboarding, not actually drown windsurfing, and keep getting those bonuses and raises, what does it matter if I'm not Terje Haakonsen, Robbie Naish, or... someone who's *really* good at what I do?

But if I weren't that great a dad - that MATTERS. To me, to whoever had to bear the poor little b****r, and to him/her - and to everyone he/she meets, too, most likely, depending on how badly I f**k them up.

Not a responsibility I could handle.

"Yet you must agree that not all base urges are useful, at least?"

Interesting question.

How do cliches become cliches? By being true.

How do base urges become base urges? By being useful. Useful, that is, in an evolutionary sense, i.e. useful to our species, or rather, to our genes, our family. It's useful to get an adrenaline rush when you're terrified, because that either makes you able to sprint with the speed of a thousand gazelles or fight like a maniac and not feel pain till later. Of course, that all falls down a bit in a modern civilised society, where you can't run with the speed of a thousand gazelles because the fashion this week is to have the laces on your Nikes undone, and you can't fight like a maniac because you'll get locked up.

I like to think that it's a mark of how civilised we are that we are able to control our base urges. For this reason I'm repelled by obesity, fecundity and the death penalty, because they represent the apparent inability of what should be, and often pretend to be, rational civilised humans to rise above their base instinct to eat like pigs, have unlimited unprotected sex and kill people and pretend it's OK.

All base instincts ARE useful - otherwise we wouldn't have them. They're useful in much the same way that fire is useful - under control, and in the proper place.

H.

Az and Fnord,
Most people spell my name with an i first time I tell them; I'm hopng if I'm fierce enough they'll get scared and stop!

And good luck with the new Jag Az

Hoo,
'But I couldn't deal with not being quite good enough at being a dad. That would matter.' By your own admission, being a dad would really matter to you, you'd think about it and care about it and probably do a good job of it. On the other had you'd constantly be worrying that you weren't up to it and couldn't do it. Short of a daily assurance from your charges that you were the best dad in the world you'd end up sure that you were incabable and a failure, you'd worry yourself into an early grave, and it wouldn't be worth it.

On the other hand, that leaves the people who don't care about botching the job of being parents to be parents, which seems a shame.

Tricky.

hi Clare,

I agree that if someone at least *worries* about not being a good parent, they are most likely already being a well above average good parent. It does seem like the people who couldn't give a sh*t about their kids are the ones who tend to multiply like rabbits. The thoughtful and caring ones either have 1 or 2 children or opt not to have any. I know a lot of childless people who would have made wonderful parents.

If this trend continues I wonder what the world is going to be like in another 100 years. Or perhaps it's always been this way. I almost never meet anyone who has had a 'happy childhood'.

az

Hoo,

If your only reason for not wanting children is your fear of not being a great dad and somehow f**king them up then I think you are doing yourself a great disservice. Children don't need or even want 'perfect' parents. In fact, their needs are quite simple I think (until they turn into teenagers! ).

az

Parents do have a lot of influence on their children when young, but as the kids get older a lot of them reject the stuff their parents taught them. I'm very lucky in having really nice (if somewhat peculiar) reasonable parents, but I know a lot of people who are not so lucky. Patito, for one, has (to my mind) rather unnecessarily strict parents (but nice too, Duckie), but now she's older they don't seem to bother her too much.

How's the jag, az? Are you driving it yet?

I think that parents and siblings are there to teach us tolerance. I mean we are born by chance into these families and who knows if we can actually get on with them? I also think that sometimes having a difficult family situation helps one to build their character and personal strengths. There is a quote that goes something like - 'how many a promising life has been ruined by a happy childhood?'. And I think there is some truth to that.

Clare,
The new Jag is totally fab! Am going to get a broad-band connection next week and will soon be zooming all over the place.

az

Hoo -
How did cliches become cliches? By being popular.
How did base urges become base urges? By HAVING BEEN useful. Adaptation for a different kind of society once every few centuries or so has rendered many of the urges obsolete. Many, I agree, do have extremely beneficial uses in modern life - I give thanks to the evolutionary need for a greater intelligence - not ALL are useful, or to put it another way, useful meaning 'fit for a purpose', perhaps being a bit too general, since most things are fit for SOME purpose. Rather, then, say fit for a socially acceptable purpose. How about the urge to defecate at the edges of my territory, and then engage in hurling it at my neighbours if they overstep their bounds? That's not just culture-conditioning in apes, it's been observed in primates everywhere. I don't claim that man is that superior to apes in that comment, just that my culture has bought me up to believe that my culture is superior. Just in case any of you were going to have a rant.

Well, I was going to have a rant, but I can't be bothered.

It's too hot.
The washing up needs doing.
And my territory needs marking.

Noggin

Captain's Log, Stardate Pi:
No argument there, Nog. Yesterday's agenda: Walk around Guildford for many hours in the boiling sun. Shoes bad fit. Melted. Brain still too hot to talk properly, much less to initiate sesquipedalious verbosity.
Persuaded by stepfather to eat dubiously legal chinese takeaway. Green, dodgy, and prawnlike. Felt sick. Currently marking the territory of my toilet. Today's agenda: figure out how to stick new end on snooker cue. See Matrix Reloaded.

Fnord,

You play snooker? I LOVE snooker!

Meanwhile, Reloaded probably *has* to be seen. I was so disappointed by it but of course will still go and see the third part in November just to see if the trilogy redeems itself.

Sesquipedalious, eh? I actually prefer simpler words that simply say what they really mean. Not because I don't like or appreciate the longer words - in fact, quite love words and find them most entertaining. But the authors I love best use 'plain English' and yet make prose sound like poetry.

az

az,
If you like poetic prose in plain english, have you read Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Woolf? Also True Believer by the same author. They're so good, I check them both out of the school library at least once a term, just to see how they're getting on!
I just finished Life of Pi, everyone who hasn't read it do! It's brilliant.

Fnord,
Guilfod eh? My grandparents live quite near you then, in Aldershot. I think it's pretty much the deadest place I've been to in this country, but they seem to like it.

Clare,

Shall check our your suggestions at the local book shop, though it's quite hard to find a good selection of books in English here. Used to order stuff from Amazon until my Visa card got maxed. Glad you liked Life of Pi - Richard Parker is such an amazing character.

Any news of Duckie? (gone but not forgotten . . . )

az

Dead? One of my old stamping grounds (Carmarthen) was once voted the second most boring town in the UK - and that was before they closed the cinema . That left the cattle mart; then they had foot and mouth. Thankfully I've moved on.

Who did you say wrote Life of Pi? I'll try to get hold of a copy.

Noggin

Duckie has been visiting relations until today, I think. I haven't spoken to her since she got back though. She'll almost certainly be online on Monday, if not before.

noggin,

Life of Pi by Yann Martel - won the Booker Prize this year.

Lovely book. Have a feeling you'll like it.

az

Yes, I think you'll like it Noggin

Clare - didn't say I lived in Guildford, might live near it... wouldn't want to give it all away in case some embittered Justin type is lurking, waiting to come to my home and inconvenience me.
Az - No particular taste for plain prose or overly embellished frippery. My tasted run far and wide...

The Life of Pi: Keep meaning to "borrow" that from my local library after reading about it in the Booker prize reports, or whatever it won, but I'm still waiting for my Critique of Pure Reason to be available. The reason for this is that I threw it at a massive spider who I saw across my room (downside of living in an attic) and currently that spider is still disintegrating underneath it. I'm not really bothered about the spider, it's just a good excuse for lighter reading. How "heavy" is Life of Pi, and what's it about?

I quite understand Fnord. I only ever read half of it myself.

Mind you, I was reading it online, and as it was written as a single page it was a b*gg*r finding your place.

Noggin

My mum found five copies (five!) of the Critique of pure reason at a village fete last week, and bought them all for her philosophy class. She has a bad back, so guess who had to carry them around all day .

Life of Pi is mostly light, with some middling bits. The hard back copy is difficult to read in bed though.

It's not fair.

My local library doesn't even have one copy. Nor does it have a copy of the Tractatus. Or The World as Will and Representation. Words fail me.

Noggin