First Year Writing Award: 2nd Place, Informational - "42"
By Kali Boivin
In 1979, the world was graced with the answer to humanity’s favorite question to ask. What is the meaning of life? The answer: forty-two.
Douglas Adams is the writer of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a science fiction radio series turned novel. The story follows Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect, a human and his alien friend, as they escape Earth before it is destroyed by an alien race. Along the way, Arthur is taken by another alien race and is told all about the supercomputer named Deep Thought. It was programmed to find the ‘Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.” After several million years, it comes up with the answer forty-two. The creators of the computer are dissatisfied, so Deep Thought creates Earth to find the Question they are trying to answer. Ten million years later, unfortunately only five minutes before the Question would have been found, Earth is destroyed.
Many people have tried to figure out what forty-two means, and all have failed. It is common practice for students to find the deeper meaning in literary works, and it can be tiring work. It requires students to look and understand and think outside of the box, think of something that is not so obvious to them.
Sometimes in life, there is no deeper meaning. When as author writes that the curtains were blue, it is because the author simply likes the color blue. Blue does not always have to represent depression and loneliness. Some people just like blue. This is exactly what happened with Douglas Adams. In 2007, he admitted, when talking about the meaning of forty-two, that, “The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought ‘forty-two will do.’ I typed it out. End of story.” Adams’ fake answer to the questioning of the meaning of life shows that there truly is no answer, and humanity should not worry about finding one.
In Walt Whitman’s “O Me! O Life!” the narrator is wondering what the point of life is. In the end, the narrator comes up with an Answer, like Deep Thought did, although the narrator’s is much more understandable. He writes, “That you are here—that life exists and identity / That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse” (Whitman 1892).
It does not matter why, or how, you are here, only that you are here and you should not let it go to waste. Life goes on, and you should leave your mark in the world because you are lucky enough to have the opportunity.
Today, there are hundreds of millions of people still asking the question. What is the meaning of my life? Why am I here? What is the point of all this? These are harmless questions when asked without too much thought. Whether it is used rhetorically or as a philosophy assignment, they do not hurt anyone.
It is when these questions are asked with a feeling of hopelessness that they start to do harm to a person’s mind. These questions can trigger what is called an existential crisis.
An existential crisis can be harmless on its own. They can be fairly common, sometimes happening when a person has the sudden realization that they are a living human being, or when one starts to doubt their career choice. They usually pass within a few days, sometimes within hours. For some people, an existential crisis can go much deeper. The lack of answers sends them into despair, and they start to feel that, if there is no answer, there is no need for them here on Earth. They feel like a burden, a waste of time and materials.
This kind of crisis usually happens after something majorly unsettling. It could be the death of someone close, the loss of a job, or bottled-up feelings, like guilt, sadness, or hate towards yourself.
During a crisis, one may develop depression, or it could become more prevalent if they already had symptoms of it. Feelings of depression include loss of interest in hobbies, fatigue, hopelessness, and persistent sadness. Depression can be crippling, keeping you in bed for days or weeks. One could be so hopeless they cannot shower or eat. It is a terrible state to be in.
When someone agrees to go to therapy, they are told something along the lines of, “you can make your own meaning in life.” That sounds like a good answer to someone optimistic, but to someone who is so hopeless they cannot imagine being happy again, it can be very hard to believe.
Another thing people with depression might be told, is to find something to believe in. And so, some of them find God. They start to live their life for God and for the chance to be sent to Heaven.
In an article titled, “Existentialism in Millennials” by Tara Isabella Burton, the idea of an afterlife, or the absence of one, is questioned. Burton talks about “The Good Place,” a show on NBC that features Kristen Bell. In the series, there is no God. There is only the Good Place and the Bad Place. Burton says that the question “The Good Place” asks “is not what will the afterlife be like, but how do we live if there probably isn’t one?” (Burton 2019). For those who suffer from depression and cannot find a God to believe in, this is what they are asking. If they are not living for a happy afterlife, what are they living for? How else will they be happy during their life on Earth? It brings them back to the big question: what is the meaning of life?
The idea of not having an answer is scary. Douglas Adams seemed to accept that fairly easily with his fake answer that is still talked about today. Adams knows there is no answer. If he can handle that truth, why can’t everyone else?
College students today deal with a very important question: what should they do with their degree, with the rest of their life? It is a hard question to answer when you do not have something you are passionate about. With the cost of school, students can feel pressured continue going to school despite not enjoying it or not knowing what they want to do after.
In a study done in 1998, published in 2001, 1,455 college students were surveyed to examine the issue of depression and suicide on campus. The students were asked to answer four questions:
…(a) whether they had experienced depression since coming to college, and if so, the reasons for that depression; (b) whether they had thought about or attempted suicide since coming to college, and if so, why; (c) what kind of counseling they had sought if depressed or suicidal, and if so, whether it was helpful; and (d) how their college or university could more effectively deal with the problem (Furr et. al. 2001).
Fifty-three percent of the surveyed students said they had experienced depression since starting college. When asked if they had ever thought about committing suicide, 9% said yes. When asked if they had attempted suicide, 1% said yes. A fourth of the students surveyed listed hopelessness as one of the reasons they experienced depression.
One conclusion they drew from this was that, “Compared with individuals who only reported depression, suicide attempters (n =14) experienced significantly more hopelessness and helplessness” (Furr et. al. 2001).
Sometimes, students enter college already feeling hopeless, already experiencing depression. Sometimes college makes it worse, but they feel as though, in today’s world, they must go. They must earn a degree in something. They go to class, do their homework, fall behind sometimes and catch up. They do not enjoy it. They do not see the “college experience” that everyone talks about.
Sometimes, when a student has to take an English class for a general education requirement, they come across a poem by Walt Whitman titled, “O Me! O Life!” It is old, but it hits them where they least expect it. Whitman, or the narrator, asks the same questions, writes about the same hopelessness they are feeling. Then, they are given the same answer their therapist has given them. There is no answer. They are here, and they should do something about it. They may have a long journey ahead, felling with counseling and crying and the creation and destruction of friendships, but the hope is that they will accept their responsibility. It is their own job to be happy.
Despite being published in 1892, “O Me! O Life!” still relates to people today. Almost everyone in the world has experienced some kind of hopelessness, whether it led to depression or not. Douglas Adams’ novel, published in 1979, still has purpose today. Whitman and Adams gave the same answer of no answer. It is frustrating, but it is a good answer. It gives you the freedom to make your own answer, to make your own life, and to make your own happiness.