What is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything?
To Deep Thought it is 42.
But for an Inner Alchemists its,
‘’Don’t feed the churn, just ride the wave!’’

Which can be explained as follows:
The human world, and all the creations of this humanity that we are a part of, is far more complex than most would imagine.
In the simplest of terms, we could see humanity, each individual person, as a particle floating within a fluid. We can then further imagine that each one of these particles has the random possibility of creating an external churn, a kind of external paddling effect.
Now, if we take 8 billion such particles and imagine them to be in a relatively large fluidic container, to which we further add this random ability by each individual particle to have the potential to create a random amount of a churn ( turbulence or agitation) then we can see how these particles within this fluidic medium create over time different currents and waves that seem to create over time, an almost conscious or stable current. That is, even in this chaotic environment, this highly complex system, there will be a time when a kind of order is achieved; a current.
Humanity believes that this order (this current) is reality, and for each individual particle, no matter where it is positioned within this fluidic medium, it will (if we assume that this particle has a possibility of being somewhat conscious) believe that its position within the fluidic medium is the center of the universe and that this point within the medium also represents the actuality of reality (true reality). Each particle therefore experiences its own reality but is nonetheless affected by the current created by the entire fluidic mass. There are orders that look down on this mass. The current is of no consequence. The order is illusion (it is just a random event in time created in a complex system, and this order will change, IS constantly changing). All that matters to those higher orders is the churn and the strength of that churn.
As to where the inner alchemist fits in all this, they are like little surfers particles that ride those currents instead of feeding the churn. They spend lifetimes learning to master their surfing skills so that one day they may have the chance to fly right out of that fluidic medium that now traps them.

Upon such dramatic departures some inner alchemists may (or may not) quote luminaries like Douglas Adams by exclaiming, ‘’So long, and thanks for all the fish.’’