He is the richest man in the world, recently identified by cnn as the most likely to be the world’s first trillionaire—and perhaps in the next three years. Yet, that success has not led to any particular joy in his life.

Elon Musk says he was shaped by adversity, particularly his traumatic upbringing. Walter Isaacson writes at length about Musk’s difficulties growing up. I felt some kinship with this, particularly in his solution.

Isaacson writes, “Reading remained Musk’s psychological retreat. Sometimes he would immerse himself in books all afternoon and most of the night, nine hours at a stretch.”

This was common for me from the time I was very young all the way through college. I understand what Elon was doing and the hole he was trying to fill. He was asking the right questions, but he got the wrong answers.

“When he reached his teens, it began to gnaw at him that something was missing. Both the religious and the scientific explanations of existence, he says, did not address the really big questions, such as Where did the universe come from, and why does it exist? Physics could teach everything about the universe except why. That led to what he calls his adolescent existential crisis. ‘I began trying to figure out what the meaning of life and the universe was,’ he says. ‘And I got real depressed about it, like maybe life may have no meaning’” (Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson).

If I had not been raised in God’s Church, I’m sure I would have responded to these questions exactly the way Elon did. He turned to books. First, he turned to existential philosophers like Nietzsche, Heidegger and Schopenhauer, but this just made him feel worse. “I do not recommend reading Nietzsche as a teenager,” he said.

On this, Elon and I are in total agreement.

But wait! Behold! Something is coming to rescue Elon from his existential crisis!

“Fortunately, he was saved by science fiction, that well spring of wisdom for game-playing kids with intellect on hyperdrive. He plowed through the entire sci-fi section in his school and local libraries, then pushed the librarians to order more” (ibid).

He read many books from authors like Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and others asking big questions. One story by Heinlein explored artificial life on Mars and whether it would develop in a way that would protect humanity or rival it. These books were major influences in Musk’s eventual pursuit to make humanity a space-faring civilization and harness artificial intelligence for man’s benefit. They had a major part in the development of both SpaceX and Tesla.

But the most powerful, influential book of all—the book that would bring stability to his shaken mind? Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide,” Musk said, “helped me out of my existential depression, and I soon realized it was amazingly funny in all sorts of subtle ways.”

Here is a short summary of what inspired Elon: An alien race has decided to build a superhighway that will pass right through Earth. Arthur Dent is saved just before the planet is destroyed. The aliens are trying to learn “the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.” They build a computer that reveals the answer to everything is the number 42.

It’s good to finally know.

The aliens are confused by this answer though, and the computer comforts them with this: “That quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”

Elon said, “I took from the book that we need to extend the scope of consciousness so that we are better able to ask the questions about the answer, which is the universe.”

Elon is right. The answer is the universe. But he has no idea what it is for, why mankind is in it, or how it relates to his own incredible human potential. Instead, he landed here:

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide, combined with Musk’s later immersion into video and tabletop simulation games, led to a lifelong fascination with the tantalizing thought that we might merely be pawns in a simulation devised by some higher-order beings. As Douglas Adams writes, ‘There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.’

“He was more interested in late-night philosophy discussions about the meaning of life. ‘I was really hungry for that,’ he says, ‘because until then I had no friends I could talk to about these things’” (ibid).

Asking the big questions actually has given Musk a sort of vision. He decided to focus on three things: the Internet, sustainable energy and space travel. If that means your family sedan needs to do zero-to-60 in under four seconds, so be it.

Elon gave three motives that drive him to live the kind of life he has. First, “he found it surprising—and frightening—that technological progress was not inevitable. It could stop. … ‘Do we want to tell our children that going to the moon is the best we did, and then we gave up?’”

Another motivation was that “colonizing other planets would help ensure the survival of human civilization and consciousness in case something happened to our fragile planet.”

The third is that “‘the United States is literally distillation of the human spirit of exploration,’ he says, ‘This is a land of adventurers.’ That spirit needed to be rekindled in America, he felt, and the best way to do that would be to embark on a mission to colonize Mars. ‘To have a base on Mars would be incredibly difficult, and people will probably die along the way, just as happened in the settling of the United States. But it will be incredibly inspiring, and we must have inspiring things in the world. … That’s what can get us up in the morning’” (ibid).

A colleague of Musk, Max Levchin, said that “one of Elon’s greatest skills is the ability to pass his vision as a mandate from heaven.”

And that mandate is so close. We are going to plant the heavens! If only Elon Musk knew that!

Herbert W. Armstrong wrote about the “sense of emptiness” that everyone feels, and the hunger and thirst for something to fill it. “[T]he only thing that will impart to him [man] this sense of satisfaction, completeness, abundance, is God’s Spirit—God’s nature—God’s fullness.

“Yet his carnal mind does not recognize that fact,” Mr. Armstrong continued. “Being incomplete, lacking in the spiritual waters and heavenly food—God’s Word—that would fill him to satisfaction, he has a gnawing soul-hunger that leaves him miserable, empty, discontented. He seeks to quench his thirst and satisfy his soul-hunger in the interests and pursuits and pleasures of this world” (Plain Truth, August 1962).

In Elon’s case, he has even tried to fill that hunger with the pursuit of another world.

His questions are so simple: Who am I? What am I? Why am I? The world about me is a mystery!

Thank God that you and I have Mystery of the Ages. You can answer Elon’s questions with Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which will yield you an inspirational 42, or you can answer them with Mystery of the Ages, which will unfold the plan of God before your eyes. The path unveiled by Hitchhiker’s has led to the development of Tesla and SpaceX and may eventually lead to a trillion-dollar net worth. But the path unveiled by Mystery of the Ages makes all of that worthless by comparison. It is the path that leads to an eternal life of joy, productivity and fulfillment—helping to populate and beautify the entire universe!