Short excerpt from a YouTube interview by Chris Collins in which the host and a guest discuss formative books. The guest recounts teenage depression, identification with goth/emo culture, a tendency to find the world absurd, and states that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "changed my life" because it made them feel. The clip frames this as part of a series ('books that changed my life').
This time on books that changed my life.
When I was a teenager I kind of had this coming of age moment where I had felt into this deep depression because I realized I don't know what the answer to anything is. I don't know what happens when I die and everyone has all these different ideas and everyone's acting like everything is happy and okay and normal and it's not. I kind of turned to goth and emo culture to say look, these people are wearing their sadness on their sleeve and they know something's not okay.
Did you dye your hair black?
I almost did though.
Almost. Do you think the absurdity of the universe is meant to be an allegory for real life?
I find everything absurd. That's probably why I said I laugh at horror movies.
I'm scared of horror movies.
So the big question how did the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy change your life?
It changed my life because it made me feel.
