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

I think we should all just stop analysing life. It makes everything too complicated and it wrecks good movies. People have driven themselves crazy searching for meaning and reasons, but nothing has ever come of it. Philosophers have sat and thought and written and produced formulae and theorems and great works of art, but it all amounts to nothing in the end. We are still without answers.

Is it only humans who do this? Animals never seem to complicate anything - they are born, they breed, they die. Basically, humans do this too, but for some reason we seem to have been born with an amazing capacity to think (as well as opposing thumbs, which allow us great dexterity for building and manouvering objects). And therefore we have imagined all these emotions that seem so real, and we get caught up in the beat of everyday life and fill in the time between the times we are born, breed and die with pictures and music and stories and news. We are so wrapped up in our own civilisation and greatness that we cease to realise that we are only here to create future generations. We are intent on MAKING OUR MARK on the world, leaving something for everyone else to look at or hear or feel or smell or taste and admire long after we are gone. Very few have this staying power, and yet we all continue believing that we are going to be one of those who stay on long after our physical existence is terminated.
In the end, existence is futile because in a couple of hundred billion years the sun will swell to become a great red giant and scorch the face of our planet forever, eliminating whatever hopelessly corrupt and polluted "civilisation" is left, and then it will consume itself and collapse inwards, becoming a black hole and sucking in our entire solar system with it.
And what has Picasso done to save us? Where is da Vinci or Newton or Aristotle when we need them? What will Stephen Hawking have to say? Where will all our discoveries and breakthroughs and monumental moments go to after this has happened? I'll tell you - into a GREAT, BLACK VOID. A nothingness. All that human civilisation has worked for and achieved will vanish forever. Animals realise this. They have never tried to make a difference - they simply continue to exist. They don't care. But somehow, humanity - with all its emotions and triumphs, cannot let this go. I'll bet that as soon as you finish reading this, you will go on to think about your English homework or your best friends' love life or what's going to happen on the O.C. later tonight. You will try to forget that it's all for nothing and keep on living.

And do you know what the sad thing is? I am part of this. I know this is going to happen to us, and I ignore it. I know that one day all I am and all I'll ever work for will vanish, but I don't care. Because I am alive and that is the greatest gift and the greatest mystery and one of the most extravagantly pointless things that the Universe has come up with so far. And I love it. Because if I'd never lived, I would never have had the chance to experience these wonderful and beautiful and depressing and ecstatic things we call emotions. I would never have seen the sky or smelt a flower or felt the sun on my bare skin. I would never have made mistakes or learned from them or been hurt or fallen in love. I would never have read "The da Vinci Code".

So I say to you all - live life. Nothing matters. Be good, have fun and do whatever you feel like because in the end, nothing will exist. Someone, somewhere, has given us all this extraordinary licence to do anything and be who we are and make mistakes and it's all completely pointless, so have fun while it lasts. Don't analyse things too much because it doesn't really matter. Or analyse them if you feel like it - it's your life, after all, and nobody will remember your wrongs or your shortcomings when you're gone. Only your infallibilites and your strengths.

Forty-two.

Wow.. Ive been thinking like that lately too... and my life just sudently started glowing! I realize what I do in life wont matter to the kid that lives in brazil in 209 years, but I try to make it matter. But the sun *as you said* will blow up and kill us all. It doesnt matter if you and that guy go out, or you win state at track.. though these things make life better, its a distraction from what youve just pointed out... and I tend to say... "who cares?... Do it" but not many people listes...
cheers
ford

Yeah - I posted this on my other "IRL" journal too, and nobody commented - I don't think they want to face the truth... nothing we can do as a civilization will last in the long run.

Wow... you need to get that published. Do you mind if I print it out and stick it to my binder?

My binder has become a colection of stuff like that... it started when this kid in my math class wrote a depressing poem on it:

Drugs, sex, and rockn' roll,
Partys, smoke, and birth control.
Life's a bitch until you die,
so screw the world and lets get high.

I got really mad at him but then people started adding stuff to it, and soon my binder turned into a collage of why you should just live life and stop trying to proove things when it doesn't make you happy.

So I wanna add this.

Hey - you're back!

Sure, you can print it out... glad you liked it. It's my latest philosophical rant

hehe! I missed you guys!


when was the last time I was on here? Christmas?

Might have been more recently than that, I think...
Although it's only recently I've started posting regularly here again too...

Yeah well it seems like forever and I've missed you guys! I've got so much to tell you and so much has hapopened! AHH! I don't think you'll ever get caught up!

I've missed you too!!
It's so good to hear from you again... how's Florida?
Did you print that thing out?

Yeah! And I showed it too my mum and she thought it was great! Floridas ok. OH! GUESS WHAT!!! You know that Silent Sounds thing we did and I submitted to that magazine? Well origionally the crack head running it rejected it. But they got kicked out of the school, so my old friend Rose is now running it and she was skimming through the rejected work and she saw my name so she read the poem/song and thought, "wait a minute this is good!" so she wrote me a note and said she's gonna put it in the Magazines newest issue and publish it!!! I'm gonna buy 2 coppies (they're only a dollar a peice) and I wanna send one to you. I have no idea if it will work, but if I send it to your schools adress ( i found it on your schools web sight) and had a note attatched 'give to lily R.' do you think they'd know who I ment?

Is there possibly an esier way to send you stuff through the school? If so you can you e-mail it to me? Sorry Midnight but seems as I'm hundreds of miles away from you, it's a bid inconvinent to stalk you, so can I just send you a magazine instead?

OHOH! BUY 3!! I ll send you my adress, Im pretty sure you arnt a mass cerial killer or anything heh... your not are you? KIDDIN! We should get together sometime... all three of us! In disney land!! HOW COOL!
cheers
ford

Yeah! We could go to Disney Quest! It's a vertual theme park! You can make your own rollar coasters and ride them is a super cool simulator and play vertual reality games and make toys, CDs, and other electric stuff on the computer, then you wait a bit and they actually make it for you!!! But regular Disneys just as cool! ROLLAR COASTERS!!!

Thats the only good thing about Florida. It used to be empty swamp land so they built all the theme parks here.

Ok! I'll buy three then!And no, sadly I'm not a cerial killer. I'm quite fond of Cerial and eat it every morning.

There is a difference between "serial killer" and the "cereal" you eat for breakfast... which I am also a fan of.
Yeah, Fred, that would be cool - I'll email you with more specific details concerning how you could mail the letter to me here at school, if you like. I'd be really interested to see the magazine. I'm so glad we got in! *squeals*
Hey - maybe you could mail me the Napoleon Dynamite DVD Kiddin'...
Let me know when you've posted it to me (which will obviously be after I've emailed you and you've actually got a copy of the magazine to send to me) so I'm not waiting around for months and months wondering "Will it come today? Or won't it?"

Disneyland sounds good, but I'm not sure that it would be as easy to get to from Australia as it would from Nevada or Florida. Hey - maybe we could all mail each other stuff? And bring this into the real world? Wow - I'm getting shivers...

Yeah I know it'd be hard for you to come from Australia... wish you could just zap your self here.

But yeah! That would be really cool if we sent each other stuff! I'll e-mail you guys how to send stuff to me. We could be like... REAL pen pals and use onvelopes! COOL!!!

Don't worry I'll let you all know when I send them. I just sent in the order form today, so I should get the magazines in a bit.. I hope.

I don't know how the magazine works this year, I did it last year, but all the staff left for high school so other people run it this year, so I can't garentee anything.

Oh yeah by the way midnight, you broke the rule You can only submit if your under 11-14 years old I think... but I put my age on the submission so I think we're good.

maybe I could mail????????

Yeah, but by the time I got the , it would probably be melted or smushed or growing something. The parents of our family's current exchange student (from Austria) mailed us some really nice, delicate Austrian chocolate, but by the time we got it, it was all melted together in a lump. We cut a bit off though, and it still tasted really good - it just wasn't all that presentable. I think they make chocolate differently in Austria to what they do here...

Yay! Real envelopes! I have to warn you that it takes me ages and ages to write back, though - and then I always feel guilty that I haven't written back or anything for ages... it seems like such a big deal for me to send a letter overseas, even though I know it's not really. But I'm looking forward to getting it from you. I'll email you soon on how to send stuff to me. And we would actually be able to send each other stuff instead of just messages... like actual objects! Sweet!

Oooooh... I broke the rules... oh well, as long as you didn't tell them I'm fifteen it'll all be okay, right?

yeah! It's alright that your fifteen as long as they don't know that....


I gave the money and order form to Mr. Felt the other day (the teacher in charge of the magazine... he's so cool! He's a buddist and a hippy!) any way I ran into him in the courtyard he was listening to his head phones. I gave him the money and explained what it was for. When I told him what we wrote, he said "oh that one? That one was good, I'm sorry about the mix up, the editor in cheif was like, on crack or somthing. But yeah, we should be getting the magazine out in like a few days, i think. Well like hopfully anyway."


HE IS SOOOO COOL!

We can send each other objects! COOL! I can send you my 'Florida' Keychain. It's stupid and torrist-ie but it's from america!

HEY COOL! Ill send both of you my adress! Ill send you pictures from our NY trip as soon as I can.. and me in my band uniform! I fOUND THEM TODAY! YAY! Send me a magazine too! This is neat... sara says hi!
cheers
ford

yeah I ordered 3 magazines... one for me, one for midnight, and one for ford! YAY!

YAY! ill send you my adress.... right now infact! haha
cheers
ford

Yay! Contact!!!
I'll send you something Melbourne-y once I have your addresses and all that.