26 August 2009

The Laws of Life

As I sat working today, listening to ‘The Restaurant at the End of the Universe’ by Douglas Adams, I heard something that made me think. I usually try to avoid doing that while at work (it gets in the way of me completing my work related tasks plus thinking always interferes when money is involved) hence the reason I listen to audio books. But, try as I may, my mind steadfastly refused to pay attention and began to contemplate what it heard. So, now I have decided to add a new law to ‘Mike’s Laws of Life.’

Now for those of you who either don’t know me or haven’t heard about my laws (which is most of you, I don’t think I have voiced them too often in public), I have two, well now three, laws that I believe should govern all life forms. (Yes, there are only three so far, I have just recently started gathering them, and quite frankly Law #1 does take care of pretty much everything else.) I guess before I tell you what the third law is I will tell you what the first two are.

Mike’s Laws of Life

Law #1 – No matter what actions you decide to take, you must always be prepared to accept the consequences of those actions.
Now, I know that there are very few people in the world that actually follow this law but I do believe it is the most important one, and as I said before it does pretty much cover most things you will come across in life.

Law #2 – Be nice to everyone you meet. You don’t know who might own or knows how to use a gun.
As you can see, especially if you think about it, this one does take Law #1 into account. If you aren’t nice to someone who owns/knows how to use a gun, be prepared to accept the consequences.

Law #3 – Anyone (person, creature, alien, or vegetable) that you meet is actually just the imagination of a crazed man.
This is the new law. And for those of you who have read the book, this is almost a direct quote from it. It has been changed slightly to avoid plagiarism (and just as soon as I figure out how to travel in time, I shall do like they did in the book and sue Douglas Adam’s estate for plagiarism). For those of you who haven’t read the book, I shall now explain how this can be.

Explanation of Law #3

First, look at the size of the universe. Go on and take a really good look, I will wait.

. . .

Got it? Big isn’t it.

In fact, one could say that it is infinitely big. Within this infinitely large space is a finite number of life forms (there is only X number of worlds in the universe of which only Y are able to support life, this gives us definite number of life forms which we will call Z for a reason that is actually not important). Now, when you divide the number of life forms (Z) by the number of square miles in the universe (infinite) you get a number so infinitesimally small that it is virtually zero. Thus the average population of the universe is zero. Now, multiply the average population of the universe (0) by the number of square mile in the universe (infinite) and you get zero. Thus, the total population of the universe is zero. Therefore, anyone that you do happen to meet must be a figment of the imagination of a crazed man (just who this crazed man is is best left to a future discussion).

Since this person is a figment of the imagination of a crazed man, you had better follow Law #2 as there is no telling what a crazed man might do (let alone what he might imagine he would do) unless you are prepared to follow Law #1.

**As a side note, if anyone does happen to see this crazed man that is imagining everyone, please tell him to keep up the good work. I don’t really feel like vanishing anytime soon.**