Forty-two, Redux
Forty-Two
I wrote a version of this a few months ago, and I am still not sure about how much of it is true. Supposedly, Douglas Adams was a techie and a maven of ASCII coding. When he wrote, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, that Deep Thought’s answer to the ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything was “42,” he might have been referencing its ASCII output: the asterisk. In computing, this can be a stand-in for user input. To wit, his message may have been that we, the users of our own experience, are really the ones who get to decide its meaning.
As of February 22nd, 2025, I’m no longer forty-two years-old. Spoiler: I still haven’t really figured out what my life means to me. But it is of note that this hasn’t been any ordinary year; it has been one of the hardest I’ve ever had. I left my first career as an educator after nineteen years. Being a teacher is such a part of my identity that the change has left me with the kind of identity crisis I had ascribed solely to bad character writing. I lost Mr. Soju, a dog that taught me more about myself and about love than maybe anyone. And I started a physically demanding career where I find that I am, once again, a novice, prone to error and lacking in esteem. This, when I had just begun to really feel that I had hit my stride as a teacher. On a bit of a less personal but no less disturbing note, current events in US and world politics have devolved to apparent crisis conditions. Most of my generation seems to have accepted the fact that we’re just not going to live as nice lives as our parents did. But on top of that, we’re watching the country’s facade of democracy crumble. In decades past, the rich and powerful at least had the good manners not to rub our noses in the fact that they could essentially do whatever they wanted with us. I have enough to say about each of these events that I’d like to explore them individually. This is much more of a reflection on this year and its place in my life so far.
I am forty-three. I am the second son of Ralph and Bonnie Bienert. I work as a postman, write when I can, and probably drink too much. I am married to a woman whom I adore. We have one geriatric, very embattled dog and four cats. I have begun to worry whether or not writing is important to me because it was carved into my psyche at a very young age that one’s creations are more important than anything else because they endure, they reveal one’s true character, one’s mind. Regardless of how I started writing, whether or not I am any good at it, or even if that is or isn’t important, this is certainly how I organize my thoughts best.
I figure, in the style of my original writing of this, that I probably have, at best, another half of my life to go. Maybe less. Before, I wrote about Ishiguro’s wonderful novel, The Remains of the Day, and reasoned that I am, perhaps, in the mid-afternoon of my life. Perhaps, as a continuation of that metaphor, I will now say that my life so far is like a hand-me-down sweater. There are elements of it that I would certainly not have chosen with the hindsight I now have. I mean, obviously, if I could do things over again in such a way, I’d have won the lottery at least once. But to continue the metaphor, the sweater is broken in, comfortable in a way that doesn’t attract notice but nonetheless conforms to my movements. Sometimes, it doesn’t fit perfectly, but I can’t imagine anything else fitting me for the sole reason that I have grown into this. It is uniquely mine.
This is circular logic, but I might argue that logic - because it is a human tool to interpret a world for humans - is an innately circular proposition. I’m sure that smarter men have had more to say on the subject. But cross referencing doesn’t feel timely or appropriate here. What I want to say, instead, is this:
Experience has forged my expectations and goals into ones that are achievable but challenging, and I am optimistic about potential outcomes. For instance, I want to finish the book I am writing, try to get it published, and, failing that, continue on my more experimental projects - the ones that are really just for me, the ones that I’m not sure I will ever even finish. Nodus Tollens, for instance, may simply be a strange intersection of journal and roman-a-clef. If that’s all it will ever be, fine. Perhaps, the biggest epiphany of this reflection is the simple fact that it is a kind of permission slip that I am writing myself: live your life in the way that you reason to be the best way.
As of February 22nd, 2025, I’m no longer forty-two years-old. Spoiler: I still haven’t really figured out what my life means to me. But it is of note that this hasn’t been any ordinary year; it has been one of the hardest I’ve ever had. I left my first career as an educator after nineteen years. Being a teacher is such a part of my identity that the change has left me with the kind of identity crisis I had ascribed solely to bad character writing. I lost Mr. Soju, a dog that taught me more about myself and about love than maybe anyone. And I started a physically demanding career where I find that I am, once again, a novice, prone to error and lacking in esteem. This, when I had just begun to really feel that I had hit my stride as a teacher. On a bit of a less personal but no less disturbing note, current events in US and world politics have devolved to apparent crisis conditions. Most of my generation seems to have accepted the fact that we’re just not going to live as nice lives as our parents did. But on top of that, we’re watching the country’s facade of democracy crumble. In decades past, the rich and powerful at least had the good manners not to rub our noses in the fact that they could essentially do whatever they wanted with us. I have enough to say about each of these events that I’d like to explore them individually. This is much more of a reflection on this year and its place in my life so far.
I am forty-three. I am the second son of Ralph and Bonnie Bienert. I work as a postman, write when I can, and probably drink too much. I am married to a woman whom I adore. We have one geriatric, very embattled dog and four cats. I have begun to worry whether or not writing is important to me because it was carved into my psyche at a very young age that one’s creations are more important than anything else because they endure, they reveal one’s true character, one’s mind. Regardless of how I started writing, whether or not I am any good at it, or even if that is or isn’t important, this is certainly how I organize my thoughts best.
I figure, in the style of my original writing of this, that I probably have, at best, another half of my life to go. Maybe less. Before, I wrote about Ishiguro’s wonderful novel, The Remains of the Day, and reasoned that I am, perhaps, in the mid-afternoon of my life. Perhaps, as a continuation of that metaphor, I will now say that my life so far is like a hand-me-down sweater. There are elements of it that I would certainly not have chosen with the hindsight I now have. I mean, obviously, if I could do things over again in such a way, I’d have won the lottery at least once. But to continue the metaphor, the sweater is broken in, comfortable in a way that doesn’t attract notice but nonetheless conforms to my movements. Sometimes, it doesn’t fit perfectly, but I can’t imagine anything else fitting me for the sole reason that I have grown into this. It is uniquely mine.
This is circular logic, but I might argue that logic - because it is a human tool to interpret a world for humans - is an innately circular proposition. I’m sure that smarter men have had more to say on the subject. But cross referencing doesn’t feel timely or appropriate here. What I want to say, instead, is this:
Experience has forged my expectations and goals into ones that are achievable but challenging, and I am optimistic about potential outcomes. For instance, I want to finish the book I am writing, try to get it published, and, failing that, continue on my more experimental projects - the ones that are really just for me, the ones that I’m not sure I will ever even finish. Nodus Tollens, for instance, may simply be a strange intersection of journal and roman-a-clef. If that’s all it will ever be, fine. Perhaps, the biggest epiphany of this reflection is the simple fact that it is a kind of permission slip that I am writing myself: live your life in the way that you reason to be the best way.
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