A great mind once wrote that the answer to the meaning of life is simply 42.

That great mind, Douglas Adams, was a computer programmer at a time that was the infancy of the digital technology era. He made a brilliant joke of an age-old question, using an insider’s knowledge of computer programming protocol. His character, the supercomputer Deep Thought, needed to provide an answer, and it did so in computer code.

Those who’ve read the books, seen the TV Series, or watched the movie, have all chortled at the absurdity of the answer ’42.’

But the real brilliance lay in the meaning of 42 to a computer.

In ASCII, a popular computer code of that time, any logic question answered with 42 meant the answer was ‘anything you like.’

Forty-two.

Ultimately, according to Adams, it was the question rather than the answer that was important.

Well, here I am at forty-two.

I thought I’d hate the idea more, but no, I found myself looking forward to this age – as after all, forty-two is the meaning of life.

What better age to start really discovering what the supercomputer ‘Deep Thought’ meant by 42?

Douglas Adam’s really did though make an extremely meta joke.

I’ve been writing casually for some years. Most of my work is terrible. It comes across as forced; therefore clunky, and tiresome to read.

Occasionally, though, I produce reasonable work.

I’ve recently worked out the magic of how this happens. It’s when I’m tired.

Really tired.

Utterly fatigued tired; such as now as I write this paragraph…

But not shutdown tired, which is entirely different, and will require further explanation later.

Bear with me now, this is all related, and will come together, provided I’m not distracted by something.

Now, I feel I know why utter fatigue allows me to write more freely, with greater clarity.

It’s the quietness of mind being weary brings me. It’s hard to be easily distracted when you’re too tired to notice things. It’s easier to have thoughts flow onto a page when they’re not swirling around the maelstrom of your mind too fast to grasp.

So why is my tired mind, my fatigued mind, better at flowing these thoughts to words on a page?

Well, I suspect the mystery is in a recent diagnosis.

For my 42^nd birthday I received a diagnosis of Autism, and as a bonus for an extra fee, ADHD as well.

Frankly, it explains a lot, because there is a lot now known about neurodivergent people and their comorbidity, such as muscle and joint problems, food tolerance issues, all the acronyms of hEDS, POTS, IBS, so on, so forth, etc. In this sense, I’ve been a diagnosed Zebra for some time, as the Zebra is the mascot of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS), which I’ve mentioned in an earlier piece called ‘All My Rubber Bands Are Loose.’

For someone who has managed various health conditions for decades, a diagnosis that incorporates many various experiences of the emotional, mental and physical, is somewhat a silver bullet of an explanation.

Now, if you’re reading this, and feel that you ‘know me,’ and you can’t ‘see’ how this diagnosis fits, I suggest you have a long reflection on how well you know me.

No really, please do.

Because if you know me, truly know me, you’ll now recognise the signs.

If you don’t know what the signs are, be an ally of the neurodivergent and go learn the signs, it’s easy enough, just Google it.

Lastly on this point, if in your opinion the diagnosis doesn’t seem right, please note that as much as you’re entitled to a willfully misinformed opinion, I’m entitled to discredit such opinion.

My assessment was carried out over several months by a PhD Doctor with a whole bunch of impressive things listed after their name.

You don’t know more than her.

She’s right.

You’re wrong.

So there.

You see, we all have our problems; some are more obvious than others.

Anyway, moving on…

Having always felt different to most of those around me, I ask that anyone who does know me to avoid the temptation of telling me how I feel, as Truman Burbank says in the final closing scene of his show, ‘you never had a camera in my head.’

So as with the Truman Show ending, his unwitting performance finishing as he learns the truth of his life, I too am finding that it’s time to end the performance.

Ironically perhaps, my journey to diagnosis started with studying the art of performing.

In 2020 I embarked on the adventure of a Cert IV in Stage and Screen Acting.

Throughout that year long excursion through social anxiety, stage fright, etc, I learned many things; here’s a sample:

Firstly, despite popular conjecture to the contrary, many actors are not extroverts.

Secondly, for me, and anecdotally many other neurodivergent, acting comes reasonably naturally, as we’ve spent a lifetime masking, which is performing a character to suite social expectations, and with acting your comfort lies in performing an exact character as expected. You don’t need to read the audience of a social situation as you do in masking, as acting allows you to perform a set character unhindered from socially expected norms.

Being well practiced in masking means acting as a character is in some instances a moment of removing the mask.

Unfortunately for me other aspects of neurodivergence affect my ability to perform acting, such as memory for script, anxiety, distraction, exhaustion, and zoning out.

Being a natural actor doesn’t mean you’re proficient enough to be a professional in the trade, in the same way that being good with cars doesn’t make you a mechanic.

Wait, what is this masking you ask? Well, to reiterate, masking is a performance.

Masking is now a common term for the neurodivergent living in a neurotypical world.

Essentially, masking is subverting your true self to perform a character for an audience of those you’re with at the time.

It’s innate, mostly, or completely subconscious, and as any performance, utterly draining and exhausting.

It was during learning about acting that I became aware of the feeling of being ‘on.’

Of performing for an audience, whether that be an audience of one, or many.

I learned that that feeling of ‘on’ was something I already experienced in my daily life.

Masking is a performance of sometimes doing things, and sometimes not doing things, such as stimming; we’ll get to that.

The point though is that in masking you’ve taken on a persona for an audience, an audience with expectations.

Sometimes you’re guessing those expectations.

Sometimes you get those guesses wrong.

Sometimes you don’t have the energy to perform.

Sometimes the cracks show, and the longer people interact with you, over hours, days, years, they may start to think you’re a little different, weird, or unstable.

Perhaps they’re right.

But it’s only because society doesn’t generally understand that you perform to fit in; and a lifelong performance is quite an exhausting challenge.

Masking comes in different forms, for example Bruce Wayne was the socially acceptable mask worn by The Batman.

Gotham’s masked crusader needed the Bruce Wayne mask to fit into society the way he was expected to.

His true persona was that of the fairness seeking, bully beating, dark brooding detective, and problem solving technical wiz; all strong Autistic traits.

To truly unmask in society though, he needed to wear a physical mask; and who doesn’t love a little cosplay, hey?

Seems I’ve been distracted by something, as I’ve segued, and now we need to circle back to the whole ADHD fatigue thing.

In doing so, we need to cover its opposite, that Kansas level Tornado, the one that has everything swirling around in it, from animals, to houses, and cackling witches.

This is an ADHD mind in standard operating mode, thoughts and ideas swirling around, with us just trying to catch each for a moment, before they’re again caught in the swirl and dragged away.

Sometimes the tornado stops, and everything comes crashing down, sometimes as a farmhouse squashing whatever doesn’t move away in time. That’s the burnout, the utter fatigue, when the brain just must shut down. No writing happens then.

It’s the tired body that instead seems to slow the mind’s tornado. The calm eye of the storm perhaps.

That’s when I can focus on the words, have them flow to the page, without them constantly been torn away back into a circling storm.

So, I have a circling tornado of thoughts, running on a ‘Deep Thought’ level of the neurodivergent operating system.

In computer terms, many neurodivergent computer brains have an impressive Processor, incredible Read Only Memory (ROM) and awful Random Access Memory (RAM).

In layman’s terms, many neurodivergent minds are smart, with excellent long-term memory, but may forget what they’re saying while they’re saying it, and quite often can’t find their keys; I’m sure they were in my hand just a moment ago!

I’ve been learning more about the complexity of being neurodivergent, and how many of my life experiences are now explainable.

I’m Dorothy going from a grayscale life to a world of bright colours, difference, and acceptance.

There may be no place like home; who says, though, one should live where they came from?

Home is after all where you decide it to be.

I’m not grayscale, I don’t fit in my origin world, and never have.

My colour stands out too brightly, so it’s in Oz I feel I’ll stay.

Too much time has been spent pondering how to finish this delve into the meaning of 42, and in my failing to reach a conclusion I’ve concluded it’s because this isn’t the end.

This story will continue beyond the words on this page, as I live my now answer of 42, and forever ponder the question that provides that answer.

 

Postscript – I was distracted from explaining stimming, and in the most neurodivergent way possible now don’t feel interested in doing so, so now you can read about that in my next piece – I, Robot?

Instead, I’ll mention something for the purists.

Yes, Douglas Adams is on the record as stating that the answer 42 was just something that popped into his head whilst staring out a window, wondering what he could give as the most absurd answer to the meaning of life.

He never gave more reason than that.

In doing so he left it to each individual to decide for themselves the meaning of the answer 42 – which in itself is the meaning of the meaning of the meaning.

Meta.