how to get there?

today is the first day in quite some time where i had some free time for myself. so when i got home, made a hollandaise sauce. the egg yolks were a few days old: you can reeze egg whites for like forever, but to store egg yolks, you can only submerge them in a bowl of water and refrigerate for a maximum of 3 days.
the first step is to melt a lot of butter. about one stick for every 2 egg yolks.
then beat the yolks with a tablespoon each of water and lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. add a tablespoon of soft butter and put over very low heat.
stirring constantly, the butter will melt and the mixture will stay watery for a while until suddenly it thickens, and your whisk leaves a trail as you stir. immediately remove from the heat, add in one tablespoon of cold butter and stir; this will stop the cooking.
then you beat in the melted butter drop by drop. if you add too much at first, the egg yolks will be overwhelmed with the butter, and you can see that the butter doesn't emulsify but stays in large globules. but keep beating it, and it will emulsify eventually.
the finished sauce should be kept warm, not hot, and stirred occasionally until serving time. it can be refrigerated for atmost 2 days, or frozen for longer, which is what i've done.

then i was reading mark haddon's a spot of bother:

maybe the answers weren't important. maybe it was the asking that mattered. not taking anything for granted. maybe that's what stopped you growing old.