It was my birthday yesterday. In his Hitchhiker Trilogy, Douglas Adams revealed that the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42. The trickier proposition, of course, is figuring out the question that goes with the answer. In my younger days (as a 41 year old), I thought that -- at least by family history -- I'm well past my halfway mark, so maybe "42" answers the question, "what will I be when I grow up?" The glumly tempting implication was, "this is the end of my becoming." But that was when I was young and foolish.
Now, I AM the answer. 42. And I now know that this is the year when my insights will "stick." This is the year that, even if I've had the same realization a thousand times before, the ideas will motivate me to act. Example: yesterday, I went to a panel discussion of science fiction authors who had just published their first books, attended by mostly aspiring writers. Some of these authors had been working for more than a decade on their first work. All of them had “day jobs,” all of them had bills to pay. And they were all in agreement about how they got it done. They made the time. They were serious and passionate enough about this accomplishment that they used their problem solving skills to carve out the time to write, regularly. If it were easy, everybody would have done it. I’d heard that before, even agreed with it. But now, at the age of 42, when I am the answer, I finally get it.
I am the answer. It’s on me.
