Do you know where your towel is? -The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide of Galaxy is popular for two reasons. First it’s cheap, and secondly, it has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover. At least, the famous science fiction written by Douglas Adams says so. I bought it and disappointedly found that neither is true.
What is true is that it is one of the most influential science fictions of all times. Tech companies like IBM and Yahoo! all have products related to the book. Russell T Davies, writer and producer of Doctor Who, says it’s a book that is worth passing around and spreading. Throughout the years, it has become a part of popular culture.
Unlike other saving-the-Earth stories, this one begins by demolishing it. The last surviving man, Arthur Dent started his hitchhiking adventures with his friend, Ford Perfect, who is actually an alien but disguised himself as a human. Hitchhiking means that their journey usually involves hitch hiking passing by spaceships.
The most impressive part of the novel, perhaps, is its humorous and sarcastic tone from beginning to end. The description of almost every exotic species and every bizarre planet in the book has some hidden reflections behind it. It could be an old school joke, a deliberate political metaphor or something from our everyday life. Encountering one of them is exciting. At first the words seemed strange, and all of a sudden I get the joke behind them. The mist that made the words obscure all vanished and I could see Adams smiling at me. This makes reading the book is so enjoyable.
One example, when Earth was about to be destroyed, the aliens responsible for that said this,
‘There’s no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.’
The most famous one of them is the number 42. A rat-like pan-dimensional species built a computer that concludes that the answer to the ultimate question of life, universe and everything is 42. They then built another computer to calculate what the question was, and they called the second computer Earth. If you are trying to figure out why Adams used 42 here, then you completely misunderstand him. I believe that he means nothing. He is probably trying to tell us there is no point in trying to figure out the meaning of everything, because there is no meaning at all. Even if you do, the answer won’t make sense.
Regardless of that, bear in mind one thing, DON’T PANIC. Even if the Earth was demolished, DON’T PANIC. We have optimism. Behind all that is beautiful or awful, amazing or terrible, meaningful or meaningless, there is still optimism. As the author puts it,
‘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.’
Two years ago, Elon Musk launched his Falcon Heavy rocket carrying a Tesla sports car to Mars. It had the words DON’T PANIC showed in large friendly letters on its screen. We human beings are just a tiny invisible spot in the infinite universe, and you are just one tiny individual of all humans, but DON’T PANIC. Outside the window, a plague is spreading, but DON’T PANIC. DON’T PANIC, let the book take you on a fascinating hitchhike adventure, and remember, bring your towel.
