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

Hi there

It seems we share a birthday! I too was born on 20 August! What a great day to be born on!

I found your introduction quite touching - you are right we have to live for today - one of my favourite sayings is 'love like you have never been hurt, work like you don't need the money and dance like no one is watching' We only get one go at this life and should live it not just watch and wait. It is so true that people you meet are the most important thing. I believe that people come into our life for a reason - its up to us to find that reason. Its like a gift that they bring us - sometime knowingly, sometimes not.

People don't always come along when we are ready for the gift but I have found that different people keep bringing us the gift untill we take it upon ourselves and receive the gift - so don't give up, don't be sad - it does all work out in the end!

Wow - sorry that was a bit of a deep lecture and for a first conversation too! Relationships and people fascinate me. I hope you will want to chat some more

What brings you pleasure?

Hope to hear from you soon

Light

Hello Light
Thank-you for the nice comments on my home page. I don`t mind a lecture and its nice to share a birthday with someone who writes so expansively on a subject so important.
Favorite saying, hmm.. I like `May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live.`
When I was younger one of my obsessions was genealogy (tracing my family tree ). I still tinker every now and then.
Another is reading s/f, especially anything to do with time travel. I don`t read as much now. I work in the City and that means leaving home at 6:20 a.m to be at work for 7:30 and don`t get home `til about 6:30 p.m. I think of my life as not so much living as existing.
I love asking questions of people, so we have something else in common. Some people are put off by too many questions though, they get frightened away, not me though. How else are we going to know how to make our friends happy? Another saying comes to mind..Strangers are only friends you haven`t met.
Music, now thats pretty varied. I like madonna,elton john`s old stuff, dido, simply red, the beatles(of course!). many others too numerous to mention.
Who would I most like to be? I used to think Paul mcCartney was the luckiest man in the world, Rich,famous,happyily married to someone very special. But I wouldn`t want to live somone else`s life, which is a bit like the way I feel now, that I`ve missed a turn-off somewhere and i`m not living the life I could or should have been living. Feels like I`m treading water, waiting to be rescued... and someday I will be.
Let me ask you a question: If you could have any one wish, say from a genie, what would it be?

Hi there

Thank you for your great response - some of the best answers I have had yet to my questions!

It sounds like you have a long old day working - not that I can talk - I leave home about 6.30am and often dont get home till about 8pm. It certainly can make it seem like existing to work and can make it a real effort to fit in the other important stuff. What is it you do in the City?

I love reading too - I am dyslexic so am not as effective at it as I would like, but it can mean I get really good value from a book as if I read it again I quite often get a different story

I agree with your comments about questions - some people really dont like them - I find this tends to be when they are not really comfortable with themselves or are not ready to face up to something. As well as making it possible to make others happy they also give us the chance to learn about ourselves and ultimately understand who we are and what makes us happy. I once came across some interesting material about questions. I wont go into detail but the basic premise was that questions are how your mind works - you think by questions. The theory goes that if you learn to ask better questions you can radically change the effectiveness of your thinking and that this is turn can impact your overall effectiveness and interactions with this world. I could go on about this at length (but wont unless you want me to!) The key would seem to be to keep asking the questions!

I am interested in your comments about feeling as if you have missed a turn somewhere and are not living the life you feel you should be. Can you tell me more about this?

Your question to me is an excellent one and one that has really got me thinking. Thank you . What would I wish for? Well, there are the beauty pageant answers like world peace, human rights and freedom from famine - but while all these are highly desirable just wishing them away would seem very shallow and would alleviate suffering but would also deprive the world of some great learning opportunities and fundamentally change our ecosystem. I am not sure this is a good thing. Then there is the money fame and fortune type answer. None of these things particularly appeal to me - the lack of money scares me but in itself it is of no value and certainly is not that important. I am only just getting to know me and despite some things in my life I would like to be different - I quite like me and my life now. There have been many things in my life I could have regrets over but with the benefit of hindsight I would not wish that they were different - each has taught me a lot about myself and about life so if they had been different I would not be the me I am now. Some of these things are not things I would want to talk about in a forum such as this but to give an example - I have ME (chronic fatigue) and it was the cause of many changes in my life, many of which were not positive - however overall it taught me a lot, about what I value and what is important to me, so while it would be good not to have it, I would not wish to change it. The unhappy times help us to appreciate the good ones.

So what is my answer? Well I think it would be that I make a lasting contribution, to make a difference to people and to help them achieve what they want to achieve! Does that count as one wish - or do I need to ask the genie for the classic three?

Wow this has been a bit of an essay!

I would be interested in your answer to the wish question and here is another question for you...

What makes you happy?

I look forward to hearing from you

Have a great (and hopefully rain free) day

Light

Hi Light - Wow that was some letter, may I call it a letter? It reads like a letter but in these days of new technologies, email and electronic chat lines I`m not sure of the correct nomenclature.
It`s hard to believe that you suffer from dyslexia when you write such amazing letters, I`m going to show
my ignorance now and ask if writing is a problem or is it just reading?
I work for BT and my job is to be a human extension of a computer system. When the computer has trouble with
the robotic scripts then we bail it out.
There have been a couple of points in my life where a more positive responce could have resulted in a different
direction being taken. The first I was only 21, very naive and I let a lovely lady pass through my life
without reaching out to tell her how much I cared. She was six years older than me, she was a glass of cool water
and she poured herself to me but I only held out my hands and she trickled through. There is much i could write
about this lady but the wounds have healed now, and I don`t want to re-open them. Writing my home page was pain-
full but also strangely cathartic, as I have never told anyone of those things face to face.
The second point at which life could have changed is detailed there. I know I need to face up to these matters
being closed but its not so easy.
When I wrote the wish thing I thought afterwards that I should have said your wish, not a wish for mankind.
I would wish for peace on our tiny spaceship as it hurtles through the cold of space too, if the wish were real, but,
my wish would be for a time machine. I would set it for september 15, 1981 as I know where She was then.
What makes me happy? This is a difficult question as to answer truthfully I would have to examine my definition
of happiness. Little things make my `happy` such as my children, my two herman tortoises, walking in the garden,
in a forest, trees make me feel peacefull, and the countryside. True happiness is a great Love and when you have been lifted up to that higher plain its difficult to say that you are happy anywhere else.
I hope i`ve answered some of your questions Light, that reminds me, when I first went to Israel I was adopted into a family and they had a daughter who was called Le-ora, which is hebrew and means in english- My light.
Have a good day, all the best.

20/8

Hi 20/8

Thank you for your kind words

The dyslexia is for real and does effect both reading and writing - thank goodness for who ever invented spell checkers

Do you enjoy your work?

I am having a bit of a day here so for once I am going to have to be brief (no need to say but there is a first time for everything!) but I wanted to stop by and say hello. I will reply properly soon as I can.

If you would like to keep in touch by email as well let me know...

Hope you are having a better day than me!

Catch you soon

Light

Brevity is the soul of wit , or so its said.
No Light, I don`t enjoy my work, and before you ask -- why am I still doing it?
The answer is APATHY. I do enjoy reading your letters though, if you want to email me its:
[email protected].
You can let me know what you do for a living and where you are in the u.k.
Thank -you for taking the time to write, you can add it to the list of what makes me happy.

20/8

Did you get an email from me?

Catch you soon

Light

Yes, thank-you, I will reply by email.

20/8

Hi 20/8

How are you?

Hope to catch you here soon

Light