Celebrating the New Year at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

As our planet Earth travels around our star Sol, in this insignificant corner of the Universe that is nonetheless special to us humans,[1] I consider some memorable passages from Douglas Adams’ The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (the second book in his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series).  On the size of the universe, he writes, “The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore.  Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, and this is what most beings in fact do.”[2] Our own triumphs and struggles seem unimportant when compared with the cosmos; the events we look back on and the events we look forward to at the end of each year are happening on this tiny world hurtling through space and we feel as though we may be on our own.  Despite this, we have one another, and our feeling of loneliness in the universe is contrasted with the presence of our fellow human beings around us in our everyday lives.

Our planet has been traveling around our star for a very long time and will hopefully be travelling around it for a long time into the future.  Our species will likely see many more new years to come.  One day, however, it must come to an end, as our star cannot exist forever.  The ultimate fate of the entire universe is a subject of scientific study, with data being analyzed to determine the likely outcome.  Although we who are alive today will probably not be here to see the fate of the universe in person, Adams has created a fictional place-in-time which would be a fascinating field trip destination.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering.

It is built on the fragmented remains of an eventually ruined planet which is (wioll haven be) enclosed in a vast time bubble and projected forward in time to the precise moment of the End of the Universe.[3]

When our own species and our own planet no longer exist, when the universe no longer counts us among its inhabitants, will anyone remember that we were here?  And if not, will it have all been for nothing?  I take the view that even if no one remembers we were here, it will still have been worth it.  Although the universe probably takes no notice of us as we look back at the past and look forward to our future, we still matter.  We are here.  Let us remember that even though our own little planet moving around our star (counting down the years) will not exist forever, we can think and feel and try to make our tiny world as good as it can possibly be.  That, of all things, is what I hope for on this New Year’s Eve.

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References

[1] Sharmin, Ani.  Celebrating the New Year with The Hitchhiker’s Guide.  Posted at The Eternal Bookshelf on December 31, 2009.  Retrieved from http://eternalbookshelf.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/new-year-2010/ on December 31, 2010.

[2] Adams, Douglas.  The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.  New York:  The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., 2005 (1980), Chapter 10, p. 69.

ISBN:  0-345-39181-0

[3] Adams, Douglas.  The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.  New York:  The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., 2005 (1980), Chapter 15, p. 99.

ISBN:  0-345-39181-0