*sigh* Sometimes we need to turn away from the beauty of an good explanation and face the cold hard truth. We live, because we're alive and we want to stay that way. No reason else.
"Our galaxy weighs three times 10 to the power of 42kg - a number written as 3 followed by 42 zeroes, which has echoes of author Douglas Adams's fictional answer to the question of life, the universe and everything in his series Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." That was Quoted from http://digg.com/news/science/The_answer_to_life_the_universe_and_everything_IS_actually_42 That's the answer to the galaxy but not the universe. So I think the answer is Molybdenum (the atomic number is 42) or Czechoslovakia (+42 is the historic Country calling code for the former country of Czechoslovakia) or (The most convinving idea) Kabbalistic Tradition (42 is the number with which God creates the Universe in Kabbalistic tradition). Look at this: "42 is the number with which God creates the Universe in Kabbalistic tradition. In Kabbalah, the most significant name is that of the En Sof (also known as "Ein Sof", "Infinite" or "Endless"), who is above the Sefirot (sometimes spelled "Sephirot").[9] The Forty-Two-Lettered Name contains four combined names which are spelled in Hebrew letters (spelled in letters = 42 letters), which is the name of Azilut (or "Atziluth" "Emanation"). While there are obvious links between the Forty-Two Lettered Name of the Babylonian Talmud (see further up this page) and the Kabbalah's Forty-Two Lettered Name, they are probably not identical because of the Kabbalah's emphasis on numbers. The Kabbalah also contains a Forty-Five Lettered Name and a Seventy-Two Lettered Name." (From Wikipedia.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(number) Sorry, it cut out the last part of the address because of the brackets, just click 42 (number), the first link on the page. Why do they have to hide that?
42 isn't the meaning of life. It's the answer to life the universe and everything. Whatever the meaning of life is, it isn't sitting there and pondering life's meaning. So stop.