The answer to life is 42

Image Courtesy: Deep Thought / The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

As a child, I was asked to remember that a rolling stone does not gather moss. But it did not make things clear enough and a pressing question remained - is a stone supposed to gather moss?

If yes, then rolling around is not an advisable activity. If not, then rolling around is great!

What does the rule book say? A rolling stone is perhaps fickle, jumping from a decision to decision, from an activity to activity. Is a rolling stone focused enough to start a project and see it through? Perhaps not. “Alright,” I remember telling myself as a kid, “it is not recommended to be fickle. One needs to stay put and see things through.” A valid note to self.

Then Mum pointed out with a smile, during one of our many conversations, that a stone is not supposed to gather moss. That opened my eyes. Irrespective of the fact that presence of moss is a rich sign of photosynthetic life and a thriving culture in itself - its requirement of stationery (stable) surfaces to grow on was being seen as a sign of stagnancy.

The narrative thus changed.

A rolling stone is perhaps proactive, and it leads with initiative. A rolling stone is perhaps a builder, it rallies others to a cause and to further (resultant) development of the society. A rolling stone wears out, bit by bit, but that is only life and represents an eternal quest of self evolution. A rolling stone never gathers moss, and that is perhaps a great thing.

What about pebbles in a water fountain?

As a senior Vatican representative explains to (the) Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Godfather Part Three’ - a pebble’s insides stay completely dry despite being submerged in water. Through this phenomenon, he sheds light on how criminal-minded humans, despite being surrounded by Christianity, do not often absorb its base principles. That is a valid analogy.

However, what if an individual stays focused, and centred, amidst damaging chaos?

A lotus blooming in a muddy pond - a droplet rolls right off.

This equates to being a pebble submerged in a water fountain too.

As mentioned in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ (Douglas Adams), a supercomputer named Deep Thought ponders as instructed for 7.5 million years, and presents an Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything - “42”.

Thanks to a reddit fan theory, we now know that the answer holds.

In one of the pioneering computer languages, ‘42’ stands for the symbol ‘asterisk’.

It has been used as a wildcard while coding - to denote ‘whatever you want it to be’.

Life, dearies, is what we make of it.

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Words: Sushrut Munje