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Maybe the Meaning of Life is not 42… it’s 13

By Sharizal ⋅ December 18, 2009 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

It will be another 13 days till Janus looks back at the Gregorian heavenly gates of 2009 and closes it; only to reopen another set of heavenly gates and looks onwards at the temporal beginnings of 2010 the very next second.

13 is also such a mind boggling number – to many, it is an unlucky number, so much so that the word Triskaidekaphobia was coined.

But in Punjabi, 13 is tera which also means “yours” (as in “I’m Yours, Oh Lord”) which is a good thing. Coincidentally, the Sikh New Year (Vaisakhi) usually occurs on April 13 (and the rest of the times on April 14th).

It seems that the planets are aligned in a peculiar way today, the cosmos throwing itself a number for the new year that needs to be interpreted like an African fortune teller throwing bones.

I’m not much of a fortune teller. But this year Life did take its normal dose of rites of passage with work, money, friends, family and love. And today, you would reminisce on the things you did, the things you said, the things you did not do and the things not said. And Life will continue its normal course of new rites of passage come the new year. You can only hope that you will do more right things and say more right things.

Ultimately, one may come to realise that the new year is not really about new beginnings and new set of resolutions to break.

Its about being a better you.

So, whether your new year is on Muharram 1, January 1 or April 13, here’s to all of us taking charge of our destiny: pick up those bones that was thrown by Life and let us arrange it as how we like it for the future we want.

13 is not such a bad number after all.

Muharram Mubarrak.