Let’s play a game.
Below is a (genius) quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — cloaked, as usual, in Douglas Adams’ trademark brand of hilarity and satire.
But peel off the cloak, and you’ll find an absolute gem of a principle for self-mastery.
Can you spot the principle?
***
“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is an indispensable companion.
Though it cannot hope to be useful or informative on all matters, where it is inaccurate it is at least definitively inaccurate.
In cases of major discrepancy it’s always reality that’s got it wrong.
The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.”
***
Hit reply with your best guess, I’ll see you back here tomorrow with the answer 🙂
– T
P.S. The quote continues…
“When the Editors of the Guide were sued by the families of those who had died as a result of taking the entry on the planet Traal literally…
(it said ‘Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal for visiting tourists’ instead of ‘Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists’)
…they claimed that the first version of the sentence was the more aesthetically pleasing, summoned a qualified poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth, truth beauty and hoped thereby to prove that the guilty party in this case was Life itself for failing to be either beautiful or true.
The judges concurred, and in a moving speech held that Life itself was in contempt of court, and duly confiscated it from all those there present before going off to enjoy a pleasant evening’s ultragolf.”
Douglas Adams was too good 🙂
