62. DOUGLAS ADAMS: A good time to be alive
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) was an English writer best known for his legendary, Earth-shatteringly-awesome The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy radio series and novels (should I even mention the movie or shall we pretend that never happened?). I first read the books in my late-teens and instantly fell in love with them – the fantastical plot, the science, the absurd humour and the constant poking fun at humanity were just brilliant. They remain the funniest books I’ve ever read.
This inspirational quote was an answer given by Adams to the question ‘What is it about science that really gets your blood running?’ and was also read in a eulogy by Richard Dawkins at Adams’ funeral. It’s so true, the odds that the Earth exists, can support life, that that life evolved into conscious beings that are self-aware, that those beings developed civilisation, science, art and technology (granted, we also invented war, nuclear weapons and Justin Bieber) are so ridiculously high that we should all be walking around in a perpetual state of glassy-eyed wonder.
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Brilliant! It takes some time to sink in but when it does it reveals itself beautifully!
Interesting, indeed. I’ve yet to read the books, but I’ve been recommended them before…
One thing, though, is that… I just don’t buy into the idea that the big bang came from nothing. Even though I’ve renounced my theism, I still don’t believe that it came from nothing, and the idea of an infinitely repeating universe seems impossible to me as well. Yet those are the only two major scientific explanations.
I’m not sure about the Big Bang either but, that’s what I think:
The simple fact that something exists proves that at least one thing MUST had come from nothing; otherwise nothing would exist at all.
Also, you should watch the first episode of the Discovery’s documentary “Curiosity”. It makes it much easier to understand (and, therefore, accept) the Big Bang theory.
Ah, yes. I’ve been wanting to watch curiosity. So far, I have learned the majority of my high-level physics from Morgan Freeman’s Through the Wormhole.
An interesting book to read is “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. It will take you through, well, everything, starting with just how awing it is to be here, talking of the Big Bang Theory, and theories about it, and continues on. A great read.
Nothing really does exist, not even one thing. Space and awareness are intertwined to create appearances, but these appearances are impermanent and relatively contingent upon each other. That means nothing really exists, it is an illusion born out of relative awareness. Anything that truly existed would not exist within the flow of time and therefore we could not know it, for even if it appeared to us within our time and space, it would be less than a nanosecond as time marches on and it disappears from view. All relative things are in a state of flux, constantly moving, constantly changing. The past does not exist, the future does not exist, only now is a single moment of awareness in which all things are being born out of previous moments of relative conditioning. All things are born and die. All things exchange molecules with the “outside world” and all things are made up of mostly empty space from a materialist scientific standpoint.
When nothing exists – what is thing? What is time? Awareness? Inside/Outside? Universe? Nothing but attempts of interpretation of relativity impressions. So the universe as we know it can exists only as a part of our conciousness. The only REAL existing thing is our I-conciousness – wandering through the realms of evolution – expanding from a spaceless point – yeah, from nothing – through all & everything.
universe like!
Boy, it’s not so easy, to be NOT affected – not identified from and with things surrounding us. Travelling from abs(ZERO to MAX) seems to be the game what WE really like. Seems to be a game what all the surrounding living nature like (see a tree!), seems to be a game what the relative
One might think, we not only share this common life principle. There must be something more. Much more. Hidding in our inner INNER self.
It’s time – please, help me out of here!
Would like to feel FREE again!
I believe that 5th panel was for you, kind sir or madam.
If time is infinite, the universe will be infinite and will also repeat itself. What’s happening right now in the present is just a result of a bunch of particles randomly bumping and attaching together. That’s the basics of pretty much everything. So, if time continues forever, there is a mathematical possibility that the same particles will all meet at the same time, arrange in the same order, and then bam, this moment in time repeats itself.
Hi, I’ve been lurking on the site for far too long, and finally decided to comment.
And not even because I find this art especially moving (although I do, but some of your earlier works are a bit closer to my heart)
I wanted to comment because of the last sentence you wrote under this week’s art piece.
About being in a state of perpetual amazement.
I totally agree! It made me think of a character created by Sir Terry Prachett – Wen the Eternally surprised.
He also thought that that we should be in awe all the time, but for slightly diffrent reasons. I don’t want to bring them up here, if you would want to experience the book he was in – “Thief of Time” for yourself.
And… That’s about it.
I adore your work, it keep on being awesome! And keep on making people think and reflect about life
The images showing cells to people were awesome! Great job!
Excellent work as usual
keep em coming!
Thanks dudes. @Nataku thanks for the suggestion and finally commenting. Please don’t be shy, love reading all the comments.
Very timely…. was that intentional?
Brilliant as always! Though it feels kind of funny seeing the quote said by a lady, while Douglas Adams is clearly…a man. Still love it anyways!
I love the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. They are also probably the funniest books I have ever read.
You forgot to mention the TV show! It was a six part show just covering HHGTTG. It’s massively dated now with its special effects but still worth a watch. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could find the episodes on YouTube. It’s definitely worth a look and a lot better than the film.
Agreed! First thing I thought of was the TV series.
Never saw the movie, didn’t want to spoil the story.
Don’t Panic!
I loved it and its early-Who charms. ‘Specially the animated sequences of the Guide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFg6Y7zbRg4
Douglas Adams has touched my world on several occasions, and his books take pride of place in my bookshelf, a shelf also devoted to Kipling and Tolkien, Asimov and Shakespeare.
Two turning points in my world come to mind when I see this poster:
The first was when one of his quotes which famously was “the last straw” which got me thrown out of college, many years ago, although few of those who heard me quote him had ever heard of him. It was the famous Babel Fish vs God argument, and they were deeply insulted, for some reason. One of the many good things that has ever happened to me was being thrown out of that college (little did I know at the time), and I wish I had the chance to thank him.
The second is that I did once meet him, before I was cast from that College, when he visited the University of Sydney, and we fed him pan galactic gargle blasters and got him to sign our books and towels. He was everything I had hoped he would be and more. It is indeed an incredible universe, which could create such people, and one well worth living in.
It is right and good to see him quoted here, even in short. I do hope to see more of him here as well… As well as books and radio play, don’t forget the HHGTTG was a computer game and at least one TV show. The movie was, sadly, a bit rubbish… such can be life.
Let it be known that I’ve yet to read his books, but I just looked up the babel fish… Wouldn’t it create a paradox? God, I hate paradoxes….
How funny that the first person to tell me of the book was a mormon.
You were thrown out of high school for quoting? What kind of fascist junta was in charge of said high school?
Very powerful strip to this quote.
You do know, that the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy may be his most famous work, but he himself thought, that one of his least well known books might also be his most important: “Last Chance to See”
I wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone. It’s not about humour, but about the setting…
short summary: The BBC put Adams and a zoologist on a journey around the world to go see some species on the brink of extinction.
For a short (30min?) introduction and excerpts see: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/douglas_adams_parrots_the_universe_and_everything.html
I second the opinion that Last Chance to See is Adams’ most important book. It’s funny and heartbreaking and wise. There’s also a BBC series revisiting all the species and places 20 years later, with Mark Cawardine and Stephen Fry standing in for Douglas Adams. If you need any reason to watch it, take a look at this video of a kakapo slightly confused in its romantic intentions.
Agreed. Stephen Fry was a very close friend of Adams and did well in the series – as per usual
he also said this, which i’ve always loved for its atheistic simplicity:
“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
Awesome work! I think it’s wonderful you’re using your comics to explore the meaning behind all these quotes – and picking the best of them for us.
Douglas Adams is a great writer, but I really must recommend Terry Pratchett, as said earlier in the comments
The best book is probably Good Omens by both Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, wonderfully fantastic. The Discworld novels are very good too, and if you ever get the time to read them you won’t regret it.
This quote is lovely, and the poster really brings it into perspective – the amazing complexity of the human eye, and how it works together with the rest of the body constantly suprises me. Love it! As always your poster art is very inspiring, and I love to read your comments below them too.
Thanks again!
I am in love with all your comics!
Love all of your comics but this one is especially great – amazing art, amazing quote. Thanks for sharing with us.
Rose
Love it! True Futurist’s perspective.
“Spend 70 or 80 years of your life in such a universe”… And he died aged just 49. I feel honoured to have met him, glad to have been simultaneously entertained, educated, and enlightened by his books, radio, TV… and sad to have lost him. We were robbed.
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So sad to lose such a great man so soon. Knowing his writing, I don’t think he could have written himself a more ironic exit: heart attack at a gym. As sad as I am at the loss, I cannot help but think that if he knew how he were to go, he would have seen the funny side.
A fantastic quote from a brilliant mind. What appeals to me about the HHG series is how Adams makes so many wonderful comments about humanity in such a light and hilarious way. I read a book recently by an author who does something similar, there’s a link to his site below for anyone who’s interested. I’m so glad the genius of Adams lives on in his works, the man deserved nothing less than immortality.
Hey, Earthman”. “What’s eating you”?
http://www.tmotco.co.uk
Great illustration of a great quote! One thing still puzzles me about Adams, though: That this extraordinarily open mind chose to believe there is no “god” and thus closed a door to his mind shut while the absence of a “god” quite obviously can’t be proved. I would have thought agnosticism (as in absence of all beliefs) would have suited him better
Not really. One does not shut their minds to the idea of god, they (me included) just don’t see enough evidence to believe in one, so they get on with living their lives. No real point in worshipping an idea with no evidence, and he would have been the first to tell you so. If god ever wants to show up, then god and us atheists will have words. Til then, the invisible and the non-existant still look very much alike.
Adams once explained the reason he tagged himself an Atheist rather than Agnostic is not that he believes God does not exist, but that he simply lacks belief in said God. Were God to suddenly show up on his doorstep, he would likely changed his beliefs.
Actually, agnosticism is not a “middle ground” between theism and atheism. It’s on another scale entirely: gnosticism and agnosticism. One means that it is possible to know, and the other that it is not possible to know. You can be an agnostic theist (There is a god, but it can’t be proven), and you can be an agnostic atheist (There isn’t a god, but it can’t be proven).
Now the question is, why only one god?
what about God. Could He with his infinite wisdom design and create everything we see or dont see. because i think the idea of something out of nothing is really too farfetched to be true. just a thought:)
Were I God, I’d make something pretty amazing like the Universe. The people on the little blue rock would have billions of years to sort through before they found me.
You continue to amaze me with your down-to-earth yet amazingly insightful/inspiring way of looking at life.
I really shouldn’t be reading this at work. Sends a shiver up my spine and a tear down my eye.
… yup, same here – but perfect for getting 5 minutes perspective & a reminder of what’s real & important (certainly not the deskjob that pays the rent)
Douglas Adams – total hero of mine (I’m from the UK too) and if no-one else has mentioned it there was a radio show of the HHGTG which is well worth tracking down…
… and Gav, thankyou so much for the amazing work – every single one has resonated & made me remember, ahh!
x
I have a cousin with my grandfather’s eyes. Seeing a resemblance as noticeable as that between an 80 year old and a 2 year old is quite something.
Not to mention… The BBC miniseries.
Seriously… Trillion?
Amazing quote! And so true!
The mind boggles but I suspect its our all too human psychology, with our eternal longing and the longing to be eternal that goads us to believe that ‘Something’ has to be the default state rather than ‘Nothing’
Writers like Douglas Adams play with our follies n vice in wit n humour, sugar coats our ego , takes it for a ride across the galaxy..Tribute to you. May u live forever.
This always rings sadly to me. Poor Douglas didn’t get his 80 years.
Exactly! It’s so tragically ironic that Douglas Adams never got that much time in this world! :’(
Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, “This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!” This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for. We all know that at some point in the future the Universe will come to an end and at some other point, considerably in advance from that but still not immediately pressing, the sun will explode. We feel there’s plenty of time to worry about that, but on the other hand that’s a very dangerous thing to say.
Would like to see you adapt this…..
Digging Douglas Adams