By Myles Ludwig
Once upon a time, I thought there was a secret key to unlock the meaning of life.
A metaphoric key, but an actual secret, hidden away in a Holy Ark or sequestered in a reliquary. I believed then, that once I reached the age of 30, someone would shake my hand in a peculiar way ― like a Masonic ritual salute ― and induct me into the club which kept the secret under surveillance and well-guarded. Then I would know the secret meaning of life, and after that, everything would be just fine.
Didn’t happen.
I shouldn’t have been surprised because it seems like everybody and his/her brother and sister is searching for that secret. Every magazines promises to reveal the secret to losing 10 pounds, have a happy marriage, a great vacation, build a better mousetrap, make a tasty meal in 10 seconds, a happy family, a fulfilling sex life, successful retirement, improve your golf swing.
Promises to reveal secrets abound, some more important than others. Every religion and philosophy has something to say about this. Some even say there’s a secret meaning to death, but no one I know ever received a Skype from beyond.
I have a friend and colleague – I haven’t seen him in maybe 30 years – who is a terrific newspaper reporter. We were both single in those days and, admittedly, we were both rascals. I remember we used to cruise the Korean hostess bars – middlebrow sleaze – in Honolulu where he was taking a sabbatical and writing a book. We toyed with the idea we might find a bride in one of those dark places.
I have my own sad tales about that, and about other friends who were burdened by similar self-delusions, but what I remember most about that carousing was the night we were in a large club with another journo when suddenly, squads of uniformed police stormed in, turned on the all the lights and ordered everyone to stay in their seats, nobody could leave. It was one of those terrible moments when the lights go on, you’re in a place where you shouldn’t be and everybody looks like they got caught about to steal a doughnut. A Leonard Cohen moment of chagrin. Closing time in the cosmos.
Apparently, we learned, one of the “hostesses” had been murdered the previous night and the police intended to question everyone in the club. It was an awkward moment; our thin shroud of self-degradation was ripped away. At the time, the three of us had fairly respectable positions and that respectability might have been jeopardized if our names were to appear in a police report or newspaper. Those were BM days (Before Media: before The Smoking Gun, The Drudge Report, Gawker, Facebook’s bottomless pit of photos of drunken college girls, before Twitter). We were nonplussed and not sure how to wriggle out of the situation. But, in those days, the power of the press was considered real (in our naïveté, we thought a taped TV sign to the windshield of a car in a conflict zone made us bulletproof much like the amulets of Native American tribes) ― and, there were many times it was useful.
Finally, K (I don’t want to embarrass him any further) volunteered to take the weight, stood up, flashed his press card at the commanding officer and explained the delicacy of our situation as media, saying we all worked for very important newspapers, etc. It wasn’t exactly true, but the ruse was good enough to get us out of Dodge through a side door. We skulked out of the club and ran down the alley giggling like kids who got caught skipping school, but talked our way out of detention.
Anyway, the secret.
So, K finished his stint in Hawaii and soon thereafter was posted to Africa as bureau chief for his newspaper. K was an African-American (though there was not much African about him), so it seemed logical he’d have more access to government officials and witch doctors than a white guy. He wrote a pretty good book about his time there, expressing his disillusionment with the African leaders he met. That was controversial. Some thought of it as a black-on-black intellectual drive-by shooting. I saw him interviewed on a couple of TV shows, Charlie Rose, I think.
But tucked inside the controversy was something else that got my attention. He wrote that when he returned to Washington, D.C., nearly every black cab driver who ferried him from one official government event to another, believing he had access to inside-the-Beltway secrets, asked him about “The Plan.” They believed “The Plan” was a top secret blueprint for white America to continuing subjugating African-Americans.
K assured the cabbies there was no plan and, in fact, predicted correctly that demographics would eventually lead to POTUS doing a few bars of Al Green and golfing with Tiger Woods in Florida.
Why this story?
It reminded me of seeking the secret to the meaning of life.
Well, of course, when I did reach the age of 30, no one showed up to whisper the Da Vinci Code in my ear. No one showed up to tell me why this and why that. How this happened and that. Nobody showed up when I hit 40, 50, or even 69. Now that I’m passing through 70, there’s still no one lurking in the shadows and it seems the meaning of life is less like a secret and more like a mystery. An infinity of self-nestled Russian dolls.
I recall hearing recently about Douglas Adams’ pilgrim (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) who asked a monstrously large computer for the secret of the meaning of life. The computer whizzed and whirred, jingled and jangled and, finally, in a Siri-like voce said, “42.”
“42?” asked the astonished pilgrim.
No answer.
So I guess the moral of this story is that everybody’s secret to the meaning of life, the key to the why of their own existence is different. 42 makes no more sense than 37 or 59. That’s why it’s a secret ― and a mystery.
As Joseph Campbell once said, “Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”
Myles Ludwig is a media savant living in Lake Worth.