Taowelism and the Way of the Galactic Hitchhiker

The Ultimate Answer

Lunkwill and Fook. Loonquawl and Phouchg, seven and a half million years later.
The Answer that can be known is not the Answer.
“Forty-two,” said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm,
Spoken as the beginning of a quest, not a journey’s end.

The Answer asks a question, The Question;
Of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Hang the sense of it, stick out your thumb.
Clinging to tremendous lifestyle difficulties only brings the Vl’Hurgs,
And a trap of too rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.

Keep asking the Question, join the ride..
See if we can’t eff the ineffable after all.
The awe of ignorance gives way to the awe of understanding.

From Deep Thought, mice, and Magrathea,
Seen is such complexity that Life itself is part of its operating matrix. The Question is all around us.

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Deep Thoughts

In the Tao we grow to understand that the Truth, or Tao, that can be known is not the Truth. The Answer, 42, spoken by Deep Thought, is not the whole Answer just as a truth that can be know is not the whole truth. Why? Because any truth should only ask more questions. We can never know everything, but that’s wherein lie all the fun. We live and we learn, we live at any rate. As we live we are constantly asking more questions, and finding more answers, which usually lead to more questions, and so on.

While we live we’ll likely never know everything, we have to learn to accept that, and not get too caught up on the idea. We go for the ride, cautioned not to fall into being entirely sure of anything at all. Doubt and uncertainty are fine and favorable, because they show that we are still learning.

The Question and the Answer are the same, a cosmic Yin and Yang upon which the universe turns. We are a all a part of it, the Cosmos expressing itself through us. While we’re in this universe we shouldn’t worry about finding out what is going on, because it will just instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable anyways. Rather we should just be. In being we find knowing, each of us our own 42.

“The Tao that can be described
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be spoken
is not the eternal Name.

The nameless is the boundary of Heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of creation.

Freed from desire, you can see the hidden mystery.
By having desire, you can only see what is visibly real.

Yet mystery and reality
emerge from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness born from darkness.
The beginning of all understanding.”

*From Tao Te Ching, by Lao-Tzu complete online text. Translation for the public domain by JH McDonald, 1996

Tune in next Saturday the 2nd Taowel: Slartibartfast and the Fjords!

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About the Tao of the Towel

Interpretations of the Tao Te Ching seen through the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A series of verses, or “Taowels”, inspired by and derived from the works of Lao Tzu, with the wisdom and wit of Douglas Adams. The Tao of the Towel is the philosophy of the Galactic Hitchhiker: Those who struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where their towels are; The path of those who demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty, who would much rather be happy than right any day, and hang the sense of it when it all falls apart.

Inspired by Dudeism, a Towel does for the cosmos what a rug does for the room.

The Way of the Galactic Hitchhiker

Galactic Hitchhikers- field researchers and contributors to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. A place for those who hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where our towels are.

We see the Guide as a filter to see the universe through, it reminds us that life is far too ridiculous to be taken too seriously. We are science and science-fiction fanatics, social activists, and hopeful futurists. We are space-hippies and dreamers, gamers and geeks, self-professed professional slackers, forward thinkers and generally good folk.

Dudeists/Froodists, and followers of the Tao of the Towel, Taowelism; Galactic Hitchhikers celebrate Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.

This is the way.