(Section 36 of the unofficial Destination Mars! handbook, as written by the founder of Destination Mars!)
First of all, count yourselves very lucky indeed that you even have this handbook. Did the Apollo astronauts have a handbook? Did the astronauts on the International Space Station have a handbook? We’re not sure, actually, but, if any of those folks did have handbooks, in any case they weren’t like this one. And so you are fortunate people, who can make your way into the universe with some assistance, assistance we have been very glad to provide.
That said, your success in your new life does depend somewhat on how well you use this handbook. Which is why this section exists. Read on.
- In our time, people are reputed to have short attention spans, and we are told that texts need to be a very particular length if they are to be accessible to contemporary readers. This handbook was not designed with these facts in mind. Or, rather, it was designed with these facts in mind, but with the intention of upsetting those short spans of attention. Some sections will be too long, and you will have to stay with them; others will be too short, and you will be left with idle time on your hands. We will be interested to see how well you handle the situation, and what becomes of you.
- We will not be using this section to summarize the other sections of this handbook. You can read those other sections for yourselves. And perhaps you already have, and then we’d be wasting everyone’s time.
- A word to the wise: it would probably be better to familiarize yourselves with the contents of this handbook before you need them, instead of waiting until you need them very desperately. Desperate readers may not be level-headed readers. Also, considering the handbook’s ideas out of context might lead to new and creative connections that nobody could foresee. Like paging through a cookbook while you’re very full; you might suddenly imagine yourselves with a future in color photography, or you might wonder why some fruits are sweet and others are spicy or even flavorless. This handbook presumably offers similar opportunities for divergent thinking, and you wouldn’t want to miss that.
- Some will choose to read this handbook from front to back—and we did, for sure, put a great deal of effort into deciding the order of the sections. There’s a reason why we talk about how to work with your machines before we talk about how to work with other people, or why we discuss boredom before death. There’s a reason why this section is the last one in the book. Still—you are free agents, and you will read in whatever way you decide to read. That’s the nature of people. And let us be the first to admit that there is a great deal about this handbook that even we don’t understand, and so we are not about to try to control your experience.
- Still—it’s probably best not to read the entire handbook in one sitting. That would trivialize the work that went into the handbook, which certainly took more than one sitting to write.
- One of the worst things about bad handbooks is the way they quickly become dated. After all, knowledge is always growing, so documenting reality can be a somewhat thankless task. One solution is to update the text from time to time, which has significant downsides, including the amount of work it would require. The other solution, and the one we’ve adopted, is to focus the text mainly on broad principles (e.g., flexibility, diligence, acceptance of one’s fate). Not only are these unlikely to change, but they can be applied to new situations in a way that up-to-the-minute toaster oven instructions cannot. (This is the difference, you understand, between a handbook and a manual.) We’ve therefore aimed our writing at a level of generality that ought to serve you best and which may, at times, even strike you as profound.
- One of the central questions: is this book a how-to, or is it a what-to or when-to or where-to—or could it even be a why-to?
- Note that if you do read this handbook differently than we’ve anticipated or if you apply our information and guidelines to situations we haven’t outlined or in ways we haven’t suggested, we cannot be held responsible for the results. Legally or even ethically.
- There is a table of contents in this handbook, but no index. We didn’t want to coddle you.
- Nor are there any appendices. An appendix seems to us to be a subordinate, second-class kind of chapter, and we value all our chapters equally. We hope you will do the same.
- No handbook can ever claim to be complete, and the responsible ones refrain from making that claim. We are going to take that discretion a step further by proclaiming the incompleteness of this handbook. Indeed, there are many subjects—even potentially crucial ones—that you will not find covered here. Sometimes this is because there are things we don’t know, and sometimes because there are things that we don’t know that we do know, or that we know but we don’t know that you want to know them, if you see what we mean. And sometimes things are missing because we decided to leave them out. It has been observed that, in many aboriginal cultures, craftspeople intentionally build flaws into the textiles and pottery they make, with the understanding that humans are incapable of perfection. We’ve always found that very compelling.
- When you do encounter a gap in the handbook, don’t become panicked. There is meaning in absence just as there is meaning in presence. In fact, there may be more meaning in absence. The only difference is that you have to figure out what it is.
- You can certainly reach out to us whenever you like. Bear in mind, however, that it takes six months for us to get supplies to you. Month to month, in other words, you’ll be making do with what you have. But it’s even more minute than that. You know, for example, that it takes eleven minutes to get a message from us; by the time you get it, it’s already a little bit out of date. Not hugely, but enough to make you feel slightly unsettled when you get that message. What is this, exactly? you’ll ask. Don’t worry; you will get used to these delays, for better and for worse. You will change the way you think about your situation and about us and the connection between the two. We may eventually come to seem very remote, almost unreal, to you. We may come to seem like something you’ve made up in order to comfort yourselves in times of uncertainty. This is natural, though we’re not sure that we will be at our most comforting in those times.
- Which leads us to this: you’re on your own. Moment to moment, you’ll be the one living this life of yours. And of course this has always been true, though never before in the exact way that it’s now true for you. Which has also always been true. This is, in some sense, the human tradition. And the human tradition is yours. It’s yours to experience, and it’s yours to inhabit, and it’s yours to live forward in your own particular and imprecise way.
- Every day is the same question: what will you do with this day, as a free person in a free universe where nobody but you has the power to make that decision for you?
- If this handbook helps you along the way, we will be very glad. But we also know that you will mostly find yourselves in the gaps, where we cannot reach you, and where you cannot reach us. You will make meaning where and how you can.
- We have been told that this is what it means to be alive.