Address coordinates Hole No. 42

Rabbit Hole no. 42 immediately follows Hole no. 41 and directly precedes Hole no. 43. I was delighted to discover the true meaning of this: the number 42 is, in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (Douglas Adams) the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything." No one knows anymore what the question was, as the super computer took 7.5 million years to calculate it, which only slightly undermines the achievement.

It is forty-two: I may now proudly acknowledge to both know and experience the answer to the most important question nobody remembers anymore. I have the priviledge of living in it.

As it was pure chance - both holes number 41 and 43 were already taken, and hole number 44, which had an excellent view and would have been my first choice, turned out to be a trap, I ended up under this address. So there must be a reason I'm inhabiting the place which is the answer.

I haven't read "The Hitchhiker's Guide" yet - it belongs to category III ("Books You Have Heard Of") according to the detailed classification of ways of not reading, provided by Pierre Bayard in his excellent "How to talk about books you haven't read". Despite its title, the latter is a happy member of "read" books in the spacious library of the cramped Rabbit Hole no. 42.

What is cramped for a rabbit might be spacious for a book. First of all, books don't move around as much as we do. And secondly, most books I know (have skimmed, have heard of, have forgotten or have read) are smaller in size than most rabbits I know. In fact, smaller than any rabbit I know, as I have to admit I don't really fully fathom any rabbit at all, including myself.

There are, of course, different levels of knowing, which may be quite confusing. To be more precise: I don't call knowing someone by his/her name really knowing the person, I don't call being facebook friends really knowing, I don't call chatting, exchanging thoughts and gestures any knowing.

To really know, you need the answer. The answer to the ultimate question of the Life, the Universe and Everything about that other person, or rabbit for that matter: "Who are you?" But that's not 42. That was the answer to some other question (and my address).