Secrets of the universe and other things from gumball machines

There are certain stories that I can’t be open with, mostly because they aren’t mine to tell,I am just a character in them, sometimes a big one but ultimately not the protagonist. They affect me sometimes on an almost soul crushing level, but still in all they aren’t mine to tell. This last year has been chock full of them, problems that I can’t fix, ones I really can’t even hope to help with. Or hell for us members of empathy anonymous. I spend a lot of time trying to understand motivations, reactions, the underlying reasons.

I feel most of my life as being some sort of spiritual quest for truth, happiness or whatever. its one of those Don Quiotixe things, you can never truly catch it but that doesn’t mean that you stop trying. So its been a diet of study and thought, mediation and deep thoughtful introspection. In an attempt to find that spiritual truth, my personal 42 if you will. I am by no means claiming I have it figured out, but I have seen a few things along the way, and today I sort of got it:just because you get to a point of figuring things out that doesn’t bring peace it brings more questions.

I think I just figured out a major secret of the universe, one that has eluded most of mankind, or at least me for centuries (most of the 00′s felt like a century at least). Enlightenment does not mean happiness, or for that matter that its going to make your life better, at least not in any physical way.

Think of it as wine a good knowledge of wine doesn’t give you a full wine cellar,sure it helps you to know what bottles to buy but its not giving you the money to pay for it. Now this probably seems obvious to a child but I am a little slower on the uptake. It does give you a better understanding of the wine you are drinking and a deeper appreciation for the flavors and subtleties- ultimately your still drinking the same wine as the guy next to you, that is assuming you are sharing the bottle.

This isn’t an inditement of enlightenment, to the contrary; it’s just shining a light on the cost of trade. Sometimes I concentrate more on what to learn from the situation, and I can take away quite a bit, but the knowledge doesn’t always bring the satisfaction that I hoped.I keep thinking of this story from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series about a guy who lives forever, and meets with the man who gave him this power every 100 years. He is still makes mistakes, he just makes new ones. Even though he has seen the story unfold a million different ways. Its the realization that just because you know how to make an engine, it’s not going to manifest in a car being built, or give you any insight as to how to pay for the gas.- Knowing this makes me feel better.