Yesterday was my birthday. The cosmic milestone numbered 41 has been encountered and joyfully embraced — even though this number is seldom greatly celebrated. The round, existentially charged classic preceding it (40) and the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything following it (42) easily overshadow it. Nevertheless, forty-one is a prime number, which is charming in its own special way. If I live to be one hundred and one, I’m now exactly halfway through my prime number sequence.
Yesterday, many people sent me birthday wishes on social media, participating in a ritual that grows more touching each year. Many well-wishers I haven’t even seen in a long time, yet I smiled at each of their names. Clearly, many find it worth celebrating that, long ago and quite unexpectedly, I was born! Of course, my birth wasn’t a surprise to my parents, but the true nature of what happened only became clear to me much later. Existence is total and irreversible: once you have been born, you cannot become unborn again.
As children, we always pondered what we would become when we grew up. Usually, there were about a handful of possible answers. I knew from quite a young age that I would become a musician. As a teenager, I wrote hundreds of songs on guitar. A little later, I learned how to make electronic music with samplers and synths. For the last 12 years, I’ve dedicated myself to mastering the handpan. And in the past couple of years, I’ve focused on contemplating space, echoes, and echoes of echoes. My musicianship is constantly flowing towards something new—new sounds or new ways of thinking about or experiencing music. It’s an immense relief that becoming a musician didn’t end at some specific point!
Yet we are always in the process of becoming something, atom by atom, something different from what we initially were. A tiny particle vibrating in emptiness has become part of the being (me) writing this very sentence.
In the impulse behind this text, there is joy, gratitude, and love. On the morning of my birthday, I was awakened by singing. Taika and Seela had set breakfast in our backyard at the edge of the forest. Birds were singing, and the sun was shining. Being able to reach the age represented by the thirteenth prime number, drink tea, and eat cape gooseberries with loved ones is absolutely incredible!
This writing also carries sadness. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be honest. The reasons probably don’t need further explanation—there are surely enough of them in each of our hearts upon reflection.
Our world has somehow become the way it is. We have become the way we are. However, the most important thing isn’t how we’ve arrived at this point, but what our hearts turn toward — what we will become next.