Just the other day I experienced an almost metaphysical insight into the very nature of the human condition and the forces that drive us despite the reality that our striving will be largely in vain and seldom worth the tremendous price we are inclined to pay.
It was a realization that may have changed forever my outlook on the world and how we seek what we cannot have, only to fall short time and time again.
Or, something like that. I may be exaggerating.
Now, the amazing thing is that I had this insight in Branson.
Yes, I know. Branson is hardly the place you would expect to have almost metaphysical insights that change your life forever, yada yada, blah blah blah.
The biggest questions in Branson typically revolve around whether you'll start the cholesterol download with the breakfast buffet of fried things covered in cream gravy or wait until lunch, which will be fried things covered in cream gravy. Dinner, of course, will be barbeque.
However, I have learned over the years that almost all metaphysical insights can happen anywhere. Some people have them on retreats in Tibet, some people have them next to a replica of the Titanic and a bust of John Wayne that more or less looks like him. The bust. Not the replica of the Titanic. Though there are certain similarities.
Specifically, I had this almost-metaphysical insight at a go-cart track. Hey, don't knock it. Rumor has it the original plans for the Super Collider were worked out at a bowling alley and Chaos Theory was developed at a Day Care. And while neither of those is true, they do make for excellent, if completely fabricated, illustrations that almost-metaphysical insights can strike anywhere.
What makes the almost-metaphysical insighting (insightfulness? Insightilization?) even more amazing is that I don't spend a lot of time at go-cart tracks. So little that I spell "cart" with a "c" and not a "k." I also don't go to them much because, well, I'm a bit on the tall side, so I don't really fit in your average go-cart. But, sometimes we have to suffer for our almost-metaphysical insights.
My mind was being opened to the universe at this particular go-cart track because the Lovely Mrs. Smith had decided we should celebrate the first day of our oldest granddaughter's fall break by taking her to see all the probably not real but certainly very thematically correct pumpkins in the world at Silver Dollar City. Once you've done that, the next obvious step is go-carting.
It seems most go-cart tracks also have game rooms. So after minutes that seemed like hours tooling around the track, my granddaughter decided she wanted to try winning fabulous prizes while playing amazing games. Or at least that's what the sign said.
An observation that might lead to a lecture later in her life: My granddaughter appears to be more interested in games where you can potentially win significant quantities of tickets that you can trade for prizes than she is in shooting imaginary dinosaurs or space aliens or zombies or whatever to win tickets. Which probably marks her as a gentle soul, but could make future trips to Las Vegas problematic. We'll deal with that in time.
She does appear to be good enough at these games to win what to the casual observer would seem to be a massive amount of tickets. Hundreds, to say the least. And here is where the almost-metaphysical insight comes in. Because like the bar for so many things, the number of tickets it takes to win prizes is incredibly elevated. So the net result of lots of money and effort in the name of prize-winning resulted in a bushel basket full of tickets which netted a large piece of Laffy Taffy and a plastic-jointed snake that made a loud clacking noise when shaken.
Of that was born my epiphany. Life, it seems, is like a game room. So much goes into winning something, and despite all the effort and certainty that you've been successful, all you wind up with is the candy voted Most Likely to be Thrown Away at Halloween and a plastic snake.
On the other hand, she did seem pretty excited about the noise that snake made. So perhaps the key to life isn't necessarily the result. It's getting to make incredibly annoying sounds on the car ride home.
And just like that, another insight.