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

so the angst has ended - it ended on monday night really. you know when you're really apprehensive about an event and then it goes ok, not great, not bad, just ok, and there's no reason to get either excited or depressed about it. and basically five years of worry has all evaporated. phew!

although it is kind of odd not to worry about this thing anymore. which is strange. liberating and oddly lonely at the same time. hmmmm

how disappointing. you're just going to have to try harder on this angst thing - in time you'll be able to able to be tense and nervous and jumpy over absolutely nothing at all.

It's called paranoia. I recommend it.

... another helpful message from Enlightenment Man

I'm afraid 1996-1997 was my vintage paranoia era and there really is no going back to those peaks.

it's usually just after you've burnt your bridges that you can't find your cellphone .... oh, what's that familiar ringing noisecoming from the other side of the river?

... one day ... one day who'll wish you had the paranoia back ... probably the day you look up out of the convertible and wonder - "gosh, something is glinting over there on the grassy knoll...."

gotta go, I've got this shooting pain all down my left diodes.

Fear exists to warn us of danger, not to make us afraid of it.

It thus follows that if there is no danger, then there is no need to fear it.

But what is danger? I am beginning to think that the thing we most want to protect is our reputation.

Aah! Reputation! I'm afraid reputations are constructed from what other people think and say about us. For the former, controlling so many minds at once is taxing for even the most potent psychics, no matter how much business their 0900 numbers do. And as for the latter, defamation law is only really useful if what is said is untrue.

People can always try to sway opinion through advertising, but this invites just as much negative opinion as positive...