Chris Herrington, Contributing Writer
In some circles, the answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life?” is the number 42, thanks to Douglas Adams. 6 X 7 = 42, so the number of man (6) multiplied by the number of days in a week has the significance of being the meaning of life. Okay then. One less than the number of days is the number of days we are to work to make a living. One day we are to rest. In terms of the importance or significance of this, we might say that this rubric, working days times days in a week, gives us a schedule of 7 weeks of work or 6 weeks of days. Now, this might sound rather circular, but then we see an odd pattern: in 7 weeks there are 7 days of not working, of rest. We need to take one day per week to rest, and the total number of days in those 7 weeks is 49. The difference then between 49 and 42 is of course 7, but it is also the difference between meaning and no meaning at all. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, right?
There are 108 beads on a rosary; there are, for a married couple then 216. 6 X 6 X 6 = 216. 6^3. 6*6*6. (6)(6)(6). The Devil you say! 4 + 2 = 6. Oops! 4 + 9 = 13 Oops! Da Vinci attempted to circle the square by dividing his circle into 13 as shown at the base of his drawing of the man in the circle, remember, with his arms outstretched, and below him on the left is a chart of segments that show this work. 42 backwards is 24, and 24 is the same as 2 X 2 X 2 X 3. 216 is the same as 2 X 2 X 2 X 3 X 3 X 3; in other words, 9 X 24 = 216 and 2 + 1 + 6 = 9. Counting by 42’s, we get 42, 84, 126, 168, 210, 252, 294, 336, 378, 420, 462, 504…..
Adding them together….
6, 12, 9, 15, 3, 9, 15, 12, 18, 6, 12, 9
Adding them again
6, 3, 9, 6, 3, 9, 6, 3, 9, 6, 3, 9
By three’s….
2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 1, 3
Each triple set = 6
108/6 = 18
1 + 8 = 9
1 + 0 + 8 = 9
9 + 9 = 18
About now, some people have already dropped out. They don’t mind collecting sports facts and trivia, they don’t mind watching endless hours of subplots from the endlessly irresolvable soap operas of evening entertainment, but add a little numerology to their day and they fall right over!
To have read that “42” was the answer to the question was funny as all get out, until we really take a minute and think about the implications of this. If only you do or don’t eat this or that, wear this or that, sprinkle, dunk, or splatter this or that, then you will or will not learn the secret to SimCity. My kids at school were working through that program, SimCity, and they had gotten all arcos on their desktops. The people were happy, and they were making billions! I asked them how they were doing that, and they told me that they had gotten the cheats off of the Internet. I asked them how it was going, and they told me that there was supposedly a secret that you could attain to if you had created enough arcos, and yet they had discovered no such secret. I decided to call the company that sells the game. They handed me off to the regional sales rep, who then handed me off to the company that makes the game, and eventually by a series of such handoffs I found myself connected directly to the programmer who made the SimCity program. I asked him, and he told me that there was no secret. They had put that on the box to coax people into trying to fill the page up with arcos, which my kids had done; good for them. So, have a nice day! I promptly stopped letting the kids play the game. It had been a lie.
“42” is one of those solutions that really calls into question the idea that life is pretty much a great big game with no point. I find Douglas Adams very funny, and the movie made from his book was really bonkers. To spend 5 million years on a numeric answer to an essay question is like trying to return an electric dog polisher to the golf pro who sold it to you on the black market. I guess it makes as much sense as thinking that God only talks to hypocrites. I’ve yet to meet anyone who is not a hypocrite, and yet I’ve yet to meet someone who does not believe in something. Even believing in nothing is still believing in something. Whenever I note this to both believers and non-believers, they always say the same thing: “Oh, God!” Oh, 42!
runningturtle87
Having completed 33 years of public school service, Chris Herrington lives, with his wife, in Appleby, Texas, and his writing consists of blogging and essay writing concerning an array of topics including education, mediation, self-development, and human interests.
Chris Herrington can be reached at herrington@everythingnac.com
