Life, the Universe and Everything

Speaking of Douglas Adams (see: Bye Bye Baiji? below), not many people are aware that the author of the Hitchhikers trilogy was an environmentalist, but he was--a committed enough environmentalist to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in a rhino suit in order to, well, save the rhino. Adams, of course, saw the absurdity in that stunt; he made an entire literary career out of seeing the absurdity in everything. He wanted us to see it too.

Posting the entry below reminded me of a quote from Adams. It's something he apparently said often. His friend, the zoologist Richard Dawkins, called it one of his "set-pieces." It goes like this:

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 watch out for.