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

This is what happens when you take people for granted. You are devastated when they go away.

I honestly thought Mr. Adams would live forever. I thought I would meet him, I thought he would always be giving interviews on the BBC, would always be answering "What does 42 mean" on douglasadams.com, would always just BE there.

Then he goes and proves to us what a completely nonsensical place this world really is by dying last Friday morning.

I keep grasping for the words I need to make this all make sense. Instead I get snapshot images and feelings...

Me, somewhere in the 9th grade choosing between "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", and h2g2 winning out. Getting the Illustrated Guide for the first time and sharing it with my friends. Watching the TV show and laughing at how silly Trillian looked. Discovering the message boards and being totally overwhelmed/ intimidated/ delighted. Meeting a close group of Douglas Adams fans in Miami, where all was right with the world. Meeting my fiancé on Floor42. Reading the books, learning that it is good to laugh at ourselves and the world and our universe, and feeling that a whole set of doors and a whole different way of thinking opened to me after finishing them. Sharing them. Memorizing them. Loving them.

I have to admit, I carried quite a torch for Mr. Adams for a goodly number of years. There he was, totally British and brilliant, and while other girls my age pined away for whatever pop star was popular that week I totally admired and respected this elusive and philosophical and goofy figure. How silly was I? But he proved to me that good guys DID exist and all I had to do was find someone who "got it". I found tons of them, and many are on this very site. Several are my very good friends and one is very special indeed.

Did he fully realise what he was doing when he put us all together in one room? I hope so, I really really do. It was a good thing.

He made us laugh, yes, but more importantly he made us think. And with him goes one more of the "great ones" who found more to this life than what it had to offer them, and showed us how to do the same.

And then gone, so suddenly. That is the greatest shock. When you're busy taking someone for granted you don't expect for them to just up and leave. There's a lesson in there somewhere.

I still haven't quite come to terms with all of this, and I'm just rambling at this point, but what the hey. Right now I'm in "angry" mode-- how come all the GOOD ones go away and we are left with the MC Hammers and Jay Lenos of the world? It just doesn't make sense. Soon I'll be crying again (I haven't really stopped). And denial ain't just a river in Egypt, take my word for it. I can only imagine how his family and close friends are feeling right now, and all of my thoughts and hopes and best wishes are with them.

I miss him. I know I never really knew him, and that only a handful of lucky people did, but I miss him nonetheless. He gave so much of himself to his fans and put so much into his vision. He was a dreamer. He had a family that he loved dearly and never compromised on them, his work, anything. He was human. He was fallible, and the first to admit it. He didn't understand why we made such a huge fuss over him. He was unpretentious.

He was real.

His vision and spirit will live on through his wonderful books and, hopefully, this website and others. I feel so incredibly guilty because I turned my back on this project just before this all happened. Then tonight I really read what he had to say about this guide on his user page... THIS was his dream. People from all over the world sharing and communicating and CREATING something, together. No matter what differences we have on how it's brought about, this is what he wanted.

Let's do it for him.

Oh god, how I would have loved to see you finish that movie, that fabled book, all those deadlines you loved to hear whoosh by. But you gave us what you could and that's more than enough. We'll worry about the deadlines for you.

And I'd love to think of you somewhere nice-- at a concert, maybe, with all your favorite musicians who also left us far too soon. But if not, I know you're safe in our hearts and our minds. You are at one with the universe. You finally know the ultimate question... I do hope you'll share it with us one of these days.

So long, Mr. Adams... for now.

We're all here because we feel the same things you do... and don't feel guilty about anything, there's never any need to feel guilt about doing the right thing...

Hi King Cthulhu, first of all *hugs*.

I'm still in shock, but I've decided, along with others, that the best thing to do right now is to remember him in the most fitting way possible-- by reading his books and working on this project for him. I felt guilty because I turned my back on h2g2, after helping to work on it for nearly two years. I didn't like the direction it was moving in and I didn't like how the BBC changed it when it took over.

I don't care now. I just want to help see this guide succeed for Douglas. That is what he wanted.

Thanks for being a friend and a fan of Mr. Adams. Take care.

I agree. With everything you said. It's all so very true.

I too feel the guilt at the way we all drifted away from here, thinking perhaps we'd return when things had leveled out again. Well, it's not too late perhaps, but he won't be here to see it.

This all really makes you appreciate the influence he had, and the friends we've made because of it.

*hugs (again)*

*smiles oh heck grins and very stupidly cause that is what he'd want*

And that's what I mean - why waste time feeling guilty? It's better than you sitting out there thinking "I feel so guilty about leaving, but I'm too proud to go back now because of this"...the main thing is, you're back! And if it's guilt, then the more people who feel guilty, the better... Now all I have to do is feel guilty enough to actually write some guide entries instead of procrastinating all the time...

Amanda, nice words, I really liked reading them,

JJJ, try re-reading your words, I can't help smiling, 'coz they read like your are a religious follower, wandering off the path, straying away from the flock and the bright light of our divine leader. Wouldn't it be the final irony to see Douglas Adams as the mythical spiritual inspiration for a group of narrowly focused people.

Now, don't get me wrong (which I don't think you will) I have been given a lot from DNA's writings, and this place along with Floor42 really make my day, logging on and meeting friends of whom I have (yet) met too few in the flesh.

DNA's vision of this site is really brilliant, I think we should contribute, make it successful and a living and vibrant place, brimming with useful information and barrels of laughs.

Let us do that for DNA, but most certainly also for all the people around us.

G'morning 'manda, JJ, JJJ, nice to see I'm not the only one up at this god-awful hour. Just been checking out the floor (I have access again, just in time it seems or I wouldn't have known) and reading all the great things people have had to say. I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm up too and we seem to have the same things on our minds.

Hear hear. I haven't gotten a decent wink of sleep in two nights, and what the heck. I'll be on aim if anyone's still around.

Too bad I am on the job, no aim here, and I actually have to work as well...
I will check when I get back home later today.

I see what you mean about my post JJ, it makes me smile now.

I wish someone was on AIM now, because I feel like a talk.

Hi Amanda! Hi too Ant and jj42 and JJJ and IS and C

That was indeed a nice journal entry! It is Monday and I only found out today. I keep thinking of little Polly and his wife and mum and ... when I am not crying about that, I find I too am spending my time thinking of what DNA meant to me, reviewing how I discovered each new book, game, website - and all the friends that brought.

A long time ago I went to a half-price bookstore with a friend and she bought the first book. She went home to another city and phoned me some months later asking me to tape a PBS special of the book for her. I did, and watched it in the process, totally enraptured -- it was of course the now-famously-cheesy BBC video episodes. Then I bought the books (long enough ago that several were not written yet, so I was there first in line for the hardcovers), the collections, the radio cassettes. All the while I laughed out loud whilst reading alone a lot. And I quoted DNA -- I thought quite appropriately for each situation -- at people who looked as if they should be trying to find a nice butterfly net for me.

And I met nice people like you and Spartus and Kate and well, everyone. It's amazing how many people Douglas Adams brought together. He said what he was trying to say very well. And I think he had a lot of fun.

There! That's the cheeriest I've been since I learned.
*hugs*

It is really nice to see stories like that one. Thank you C. It seems we all discovered him in wildly varying ways, but "got" him for all the same reasons.

Justin and I were talking tonight about how funny it is that so many fans have remarked, "I discovered you when I was 14..."

I did and so did he. There was something very comforting about his books... almost as if he were rewarding all the smart and geeky kids who never quite fit in for being smart and geeky. That carries over for any age group, of course, but especially early adolescence. I think his books should be compulsory reading in junior high schools across the world. Can you imagine? Towels instead of guns... what a wonderful world.

Was wondering through, and thought I'd point out that the h2g2 book actually *is* required reading in many 7th-9th grade English classes in this area (Northwestern US). Especially the ones I teach. (I always use it as the bridge between our science fiction unit and our humour unit).


Mikey

That's awesome. Maybe you'll be able to influence other schools around the country as well. Not you alone, of course, but perhaps some sort of teacher coalition for the advancement of all things good and sacred in our society, etc. etc.

How do the kids usually respond to them?

knowing kids, 'oh do we have to read this?'

In Australia, the HHG is actually part of the HSC in year 12 as part of the Satire unit. Optional (teacher's option, that is) so I didn't get to study it, but I always thought that'd be so great to do. Although the amount you analyse and dissect book in year 12 and hate them by the time you're done, it's probably a good thing.

LOL! *remembers having to disect "The Great Gatsby" in HS and feeling very much the same way*

It's interesting -- there are some kids who really get into and love the book, there are some who deem to find the brand of humor "beneath them", and there's another group altogether that really just doesn't seem to be able to "get" the humor. The middle group, there's not a lot I can do with them -- they've been trained by other teachers and by society that only Shakespeare and the long, dry, kind of classic are worth reading. Fortunately, it seems like the majority of these kids snap out of it by college. The latter group, on the other hand, often turns out to be kids who are either speaking English as a second language, or who have (often previously undetected) reading comprehension deficits -- all the bits about "ape descended life forms" and "little green pieces of paper" and "a man who was nailed to a tree 2000 years ago" just fly totally passed them.


Mikey