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Today I am 42.
I first read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in elementary school. It was one of those books my Dad handed me and said, "Here, you'll like this one." He was right.
One of the beautiful things about the book is the way Douglas Adams is flippant about the most serious matters. Are we alone? What's this God thing all about? How did we get here? And of course, What's the Meaning of Life? (42 is the answer to that one. The question, however, is a great deal trickier.) It taught me a lot, being so silly. Life is big, and the more you look at the big things, the more surreal and ridiculous they are. Absurdity and laughter are perfectly reasonable ways to approach serious things. For a kid who would grow into a teenager and then an adult struggling with depression, this was gold.
I read and reread the books, gave them to my best friend to read, and developed a little in-joke language that all nascent nerds will find familiar. I grew up on these books. I developed strong opinions about which ones were best. I identified far too much with Marvin the Android (I was a teenager, stop looking at me like that. It was the equivalent of my goth phase, just without the black eyeliner and boots - I wasn't cool enough for that). The books are a part of me.
And today I'm 42.
Every year I'm a little bit surprised to still be around, a little bit startled at the new number that applies to myself. Life happened and kept happening and well, here I am. Survival is sometimes more a matter of inertia than willpower, more an act of passive resistance than stubborn action - but either way, the moments and the days and the years add up, and slowly, sometimes without me noticing, things got better than they were before. And better. And better. Hey, none of my days were going to be nearly so bad as Arthur Dent's - Earth has never once been destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass, my poetry doesn't even begin to approach Vogon levels of badness, and I can usually find a decent cup of tea.
(It was "nothing". They left poor Marvin with nothing at all.)
I can honest to frog look in the mirror most days now and think I'm cute as heck. I like the person I see there - inside and out. She's pretty ok. She's got issues, but eh, who doesn't, yeah? I've figured out a lot of my values, and kindness is way up there among them, and I do my best to try to apply that to myself too (it is, in fact, far harder than with strangers, acquaintances or friends). I've gotten, somehow, busy. I have projects. And when I put together a list for a little tiny get together at my house for my birthday (tomorrow, for reasons of logistics) the length of that "little tiny" list of "must have" people daunted the heck out of me. How did I get from there to here? It's baffling. And great.
And it is, in no small part, because I had books to cling to. Books to dive into. Books to share. Books to think about. There were whole implied worlds in the set up of The Restaurant At The End Of the Universe which delighted me. I found it perfectly plausible that the dolphins would nope out of this world after trying to communicate by jumping through hoops for decades. A jet black ship launched into the sun as part of the climax of a rock show? Yep. Makes sense.
I'm so grateful for all the weird little things (and weird people, little or otherwise) that contributed to me somehow turning out ok today. I'm happy. I may be The Answer today, but I know better than to go looking for the question. Life is what we make of it, and today life is pretty darn nice.
The Hitchhiker's Guide has been so many things. A radio drama, a television show, a movie, books, a computer game. I love that it spans so many mediums, and yet still so firmly remains itself. I love how every different Arthur Dent is still so quintessentially Arthur Dentish. And certain things persist, no matter the medium. Do you know where your towel is?
The project I've been spending a lot of time on this year is also massively cross-medium. The Dream Foundry is looking to support people working in speculative arts across all manner of media - if you want to create something weird, we want to help you do it and connect you with resources to do it well. In the coming year I'll be talking even more about this - I'll be traveling to various cons to talk about the Dream Foundry and we're gonna have a kickstarter in the spring (with some massively cool stuff). We've got grand schemes. Don't worry, though, I don't need a trip to the Total Perspective Vortex just yet.
Yeah. We do.
42, friends. Grab your towel and your babelfish. I'm hoping to make this a memorably great year.
I first read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in elementary school. It was one of those books my Dad handed me and said, "Here, you'll like this one." He was right.
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
One of the beautiful things about the book is the way Douglas Adams is flippant about the most serious matters. Are we alone? What's this God thing all about? How did we get here? And of course, What's the Meaning of Life? (42 is the answer to that one. The question, however, is a great deal trickier.) It taught me a lot, being so silly. Life is big, and the more you look at the big things, the more surreal and ridiculous they are. Absurdity and laughter are perfectly reasonable ways to approach serious things. For a kid who would grow into a teenager and then an adult struggling with depression, this was gold.
The ruler of the Universe dozed lightly in his chair. After a while he played with the pencil and the paper again and was delighted when he discovered how to make a mark with the one on the other. Various noises continued outside, but he didn't know whether they were real or not. He then talked to his table for a week to see how it would react.
I read and reread the books, gave them to my best friend to read, and developed a little in-joke language that all nascent nerds will find familiar. I grew up on these books. I developed strong opinions about which ones were best. I identified far too much with Marvin the Android (I was a teenager, stop looking at me like that. It was the equivalent of my goth phase, just without the black eyeliner and boots - I wasn't cool enough for that). The books are a part of me.
And today I'm 42.
"I thought you said you could just read his brain electronically," protested Ford.
"Oh yes," said Frankie, "but we'd have to get it out first. It's got to be prepared."
"Treated," said Benjy.
"Diced."
Every year I'm a little bit surprised to still be around, a little bit startled at the new number that applies to myself. Life happened and kept happening and well, here I am. Survival is sometimes more a matter of inertia than willpower, more an act of passive resistance than stubborn action - but either way, the moments and the days and the years add up, and slowly, sometimes without me noticing, things got better than they were before. And better. And better. Hey, none of my days were going to be nearly so bad as Arthur Dent's - Earth has never once been destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass, my poetry doesn't even begin to approach Vogon levels of badness, and I can usually find a decent cup of tea.
"Out of my way little robot," growled the tank.
"I'm afraid," said Marvin, "that I've been left here to stop you."
The probe extended again for a quick recheck. It withdrew again.
"You? Stop me?" roared the tank. "Go on!"
"No, really I have," said Marvin simply.
"What are you armed with?" roared the tank in disbelief.
"Guess," said Marvin.
The tank's engines rumbled, its gears ground. Molecule-sized electronic relays deep in its microbrain flipped backward and forward in concentration.
"Guess?" said the tank.
(It was "nothing". They left poor Marvin with nothing at all.)
I can honest to frog look in the mirror most days now and think I'm cute as heck. I like the person I see there - inside and out. She's pretty ok. She's got issues, but eh, who doesn't, yeah? I've figured out a lot of my values, and kindness is way up there among them, and I do my best to try to apply that to myself too (it is, in fact, far harder than with strangers, acquaintances or friends). I've gotten, somehow, busy. I have projects. And when I put together a list for a little tiny get together at my house for my birthday (tomorrow, for reasons of logistics) the length of that "little tiny" list of "must have" people daunted the heck out of me. How did I get from there to here? It's baffling. And great.
And it is, in no small part, because I had books to cling to. Books to dive into. Books to share. Books to think about. There were whole implied worlds in the set up of The Restaurant At The End Of the Universe which delighted me. I found it perfectly plausible that the dolphins would nope out of this world after trying to communicate by jumping through hoops for decades. A jet black ship launched into the sun as part of the climax of a rock show? Yep. Makes sense.
"I will go mad!" he announced.
"Good idea," said Ford Prefect, clambering down from the rock on which he had been sitting.
Arthur's brain somersaulted. His jaw did push-ups.
"I went mad for a while," said Ford, "did me no end of good."
I'm so grateful for all the weird little things (and weird people, little or otherwise) that contributed to me somehow turning out ok today. I'm happy. I may be The Answer today, but I know better than to go looking for the question. Life is what we make of it, and today life is pretty darn nice.
"It's printed in the Earthman's brainwave patterns," continued Marvin, "but I don't suppose you'll be very interested in knowing that."
"You mean," said Arthur, "you mean you can see into my mind?"
"Yes," said Marvin.
Arthur stared in astonishment.
"And...?" he said.
"It amazes me how you can manage to live in anything that small."
The Hitchhiker's Guide has been so many things. A radio drama, a television show, a movie, books, a computer game. I love that it spans so many mediums, and yet still so firmly remains itself. I love how every different Arthur Dent is still so quintessentially Arthur Dentish. And certain things persist, no matter the medium. Do you know where your towel is?
A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have... any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
The project I've been spending a lot of time on this year is also massively cross-medium. The Dream Foundry is looking to support people working in speculative arts across all manner of media - if you want to create something weird, we want to help you do it and connect you with resources to do it well. In the coming year I'll be talking even more about this - I'll be traveling to various cons to talk about the Dream Foundry and we're gonna have a kickstarter in the spring (with some massively cool stuff). We've got grand schemes. Don't worry, though, I don't need a trip to the Total Perspective Vortex just yet.
"Hi," it said, "I've just been created. I'm completely new to the Universe in all respects. Is there anything you can tell me?"
"Phew," said Ford, a little nonplussed, "I can tell you where some bars are, I guess."
"What about love and happiness? I sense deep needs for things like that," it said, waving its tentacles. "Got any leads there?"
"You can get some of that," said Ford, "on Seventh Avenue."
"I instinctively feel," said the creature, urgently, " that I need to be beautiful. Am I?"
"You're pretty direct, aren't you?"
"No points in mucking about. Am I?"
The thing was oozing all over the place now, squelching and blubbering. A nearby wino was getting interested.
"To me?" said Ford. "No. But listen," he added after a moment. "Most people make out, you know."
Yeah. We do.
42, friends. Grab your towel and your babelfish. I'm hoping to make this a memorably great year.
