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

I first heard this expression at a 60's luv-in rock concert event soemwhere in BC. Some little chick flower child stoned out of her gourd was trying to comfort someone who was having a bad trip. It struck me as ludicrous logic at the time, not to mention being grammatically suspect. The word 'really' was being overused to imply virtue or credibilty to many claims in those days - the idea being if you said something was really really nice then it really was nice. The context of 'really' in such an unreal situation, spoken with such insistence by the little flower child to someone who had no idea what was real or unreal just capped my own cosmic adventure at the time. I have often used it to remind myself of the essential truth that in the context of Life, the Universe and Everything nothing really does matter. Really. It's a cyclical thought. A short cycle. Hope it didn't get you spinning too roundly. Or, to say the same thing again in other words - the cosmic joke is only funny if you're laffing.

It's funny the way seemingly inane little snippets stick in your mind for years and then, suddenly, out of the blue perhaps, they mean something - and not necessarily what the speaker meant (if anything) at the time. One of my mother's mantras was "Nothing's new - even the cow jumped over the moon!" Meant nothing to me for years. Then one day I knew what she meant. An old friend of mine says, when anyone seems to be getting a bit intense about something, "Nothing matters very much and most things don't matter at all". That does the trick.

My view is that nothing matters when there's nobody for it to matter to. (That's bad grammar too, isn't it - ending a sentence with a preposition?) If a thing matters to me, it matters. If it matters to someone else, it matters even if it doesn't matter to me. Deep or what? Larf? - I should say so.

Your old friend was probably quoting the same source the little hippie chick was trying to remember but she was badly misquoting and confusing it with contemporary jargon. Thanks, you've shed new light on an old memory. There is a source! I've said the line over in my head all these years with different accents on different syllables and I always come to the conclusion that 'really nothing really matters really' is best considered to be bitterly ironic. Your old friend's source probably was only being sardonic.
Unless it was Oscar. But it sounds like Mark Twain. Or even the Grimm Bros.

Wherethehellareya jfw?

Now you can see where your "nothing really matters" attitude gets you - slung out in the cold for years (or was it weeks).

If I may in all sincerity and humility extend my sympathies to you and tell you how much I empathise with the horrors of F&M and the ensuing bureaucratic panic that must be making life hell over there. We see a lot of tv footage of carcasses, firepits - intercut with shots of still alive animals looking forlornly at the camera as the announcer quotes staggering, mind boggling numbers in the tens and hundreds of thousands - and then come the sound bites from hysterical farmers wives with tears streaming from their faces, screaming "It's horrible, horrible!" or "Last night I listened to over two thousand gunshots as they took down our herd and died a little myself with every one!" I burst into tears myself imagining that...
I am barely dry eyed, now remembering it.
To have the 'mod.s' intercept your effort, your need to discuss the issue is outrageous. I'm glad you posted it at [URL removed by moderator]. Feel free to rant with us - I know it helps me to hear more than the 'official Canadian Broadcasting Corps' version of events. If it helps to scream or talk about it - please do. We are listening. And I care.
~jwf~

Well my dear sweet jwf! You're being serious. Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate that. I live in a farming community. I'm not a farmer but living here I can feel the panic. The foot and mouth is over the border in Northamptonshire and in the north of this county, Leicestershire. Not only does the disease seem to be creeping closer but the Min of Ag are going to start killing healthy animals within 2 miles of infected farms. It's a nightmare. What's struck me over these weeks is how attached farmers get to the animals. They're really upset at the barbarity of this "cull" as the government's calling it. The News programmes have been showing ewes with their new born lambs that are all soon to be slaughtered. Farmers in tears and farmers threatening to barricade themselves into their farms and keep the men from the ministry out. A farmer in Cumbria had a gun confiscated on Thursday for threatening to shoot the men who came to slaughter his animals. Foot and mouth isn't even a fatal disease for most healthy adult animals. The whole point of this policy of mass slaughter is so that Britain can export animals and animal products. It's probably here because of the import of animal products. It's endemic in some countries.

I wonder if this will still be here later in the morning. It's almost 3am. Time to fall over and pass out now. If this post survives the night, I'll put in some more daring politics - otherwise I'll repost it over at n2g2 and put the rest of the rant there too.

Sal