Not her story

When you are insecure about your writing, it helps to start off with someone else's. Apart from assisting me to slip into the groove, Douglas Adams sets a certain tone: light & frothy, witty and not too pompous. That's my aim too. And when I proofread, I'm immune (at least for his bit) to the temptation of endlessly exchanging one word for another.
 

In the lead-in to The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you read, or hear narrated in a voice with a BBC accent:
 

‘And then, one Thursday, nearly 2,000 years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realised what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

‘Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a hyperspace by-pass, and so the idea was lost forever.
 

‘This is not her story.’

Trivial pursuit

You grin wryly at Adams’s last line. Indeed, this book is not ‘her story’.The Hitch-hiker’s Guide goes on in a completely different vein. It is a tale that, once upon a time, I enjoyed immensely, but strangely I’ve forgotten the plot (some might say that I’ve lost it).

Be that as it may, I’ve often returned to the notion of a Rickmansworth meme. That there might be such a thing is a thought that has haunted me. Something that could revolutionize the world—what would its nature be? What might it look like, and would it be worthwhile my looking?

Let’s suppose that there could exist an idea the magnitude of which was such that if it became general knowledge would literally transform the world (for unless we allow that possibility we’d never ‘pass go’). If it turns out that we’re wrong, then no damage is done. We’d only have wasted a little time that, likely as not, we’d have frittered on some trivial pursuit. Therefore, we’ve nothing to lose, and potentially a whole galaxy to (re)gain.

And so I ponder. Would the average person recognize the Rickmansworth meme if he or she unexpectedly stumbled upon it in the dark? Because you see, I suspect that it might be the sort of thing that is difficult to see, even held right up against your nose. Let’s imagine its characteristics so as to maximize our chances.

Whatever it is, it must surely be logical. It must be sound, it must be coherent, and it must make sense—common sense. It must be some sort of Golden Rule gone platinum—something that . . . I don’t know . . . has the effect of making you treat every living creature with the same reverence that you accord yourself. That would go some way towards improving the human condition, wouldn’t you agree?

Additionally, if something were capable of changing the world, then it stands to reason that it can’t be too complicated, because every Joe Bloggs has to be able to understand the basic principle. Humans being but simple creatures, the meme must also be simple—simplistic?—for it to be universally understood and applied.

What would be the use if only an Einstein could wrap his or her brain around it? No, it’s got be the sort of thing that makes everyone clap their hands and exclaim, “Aha, but of course! How obvious! Why didn’t I see it before? It was in the room with me the whole time, but there was something good on TV.”
 

Mission possible

I used to swear that if there was anything we didn’t need, it’s another ‘ism’. And yet here we stand at that crossroads. The girl at the start of The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Universe?—she is me (you get to be Arthur Dent). Stranger things have happened. You’ll recall another young woman in a café scribbling down on serviettes ideas for a series of children’s books. Now look at her—richer than the Queen of England!

In my own restaurant-at-the-end-of-the-universe, middle-age has brought me to an unusual personal perspective. I’ve developed my own take on Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. It’s pretty much unique—truly a case of ‘and now for something completely different’.
 
And like Thaddeus Golas, Tom Campbell, Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) and others, I feel that I owe it to the greater universe to get those thoughts out there, so I hereby devote myself to that mission. For the benefit of all, I promise to make it readily available, and to continue refining, retuning and revising my magnum opus (I’m up to the second edition).
 
Given that this text is mainly for my own edification, is there any point in sharing it with anyone? In other words, will it be profitable for you, or a waste of time? To help you make up your mind, let me provide an inkling of where this is headed—a kindly teaser, if you like. There follows a brief note of explanation from your well-wishing sponsor.

As mentioned earlier, I consider it my life’s work to tease out the strands of life’s larger questions. The philosophy that I’ve arrived at could be expressed in just one sentence: Life is a single-entity achronological simulacrum. Or, if that’s too much of a mouthful, here it is in a single word—one originally coined by Neale Donald Walsch. It’s . . . wait for it . . .  Applorange.