8/26/2004 - Eat The Twinkie

I just ate my first Twinkie in probably 20 years. I can't remember the last time I had a Twinkie. I think I was in high school, maybe a sophomore, so 19 years. 19 years without a Twinkie.

I think that I'm grabbing at straws. I think back... what was that grand sense of contentment I had before life became so complex? Sitting on the dock. Watching my aunt's dog Daffy run with a toy that would envelop her head like petals of a flower. Listening to the water gently kissing the shore.

What is missing now? How can I go back? Twinkies... Twinkies. Yes, Twinkies were a part of my life. Something in them touched me so deeply. The cream filling? The luscious golden sponge cake? The way the three holes in the bottom were a curiosity that left three lickable cream splats on that cardboard, while the question still stood - how could they bake a cake around the cream filling?

Life's mysteries were cruely solved as I grew older. Nothing is as mystical as it appeared to me back then. Nothing. No magical joy in those things, royal in stature, once they became understood by me. Once they were understood, the royalty became common. Now there are no heroes, no Twinkies.

So I ate this Twinkie. Anticipating a hungry spot of my soul to be nourished, kissed. I guess it was okay. Maybe. I have no motivation to have another Twinkie. Ever.

Now I'm hungry for the next mystery. The next "unknown". The next adventure. The next piece of the world that I can take into my own personality, my own self. This Twinkie triggered something in my head. I could have sat and worshipped it without ever knowing it, without ever knowing the True Nature Of A Twinkie. I didn't. I dominated that Twinkie.

My life lesson from the Twinkie: Eat The Twinkie. Make the mysteries reality, and there will be another mystery right around the corner. Some may ask "isn't this constant thirst for the next mystery futile? You'll never be happy when nothing satisfies the thirst." My thirst is for the quest, not the destination. I play the game solely to keep playing.

Now, everyone bear in mind, this was all triggered by a Twinkie. A Twinkie! Can you believe that? What if I met the Dalai Lama or something? He'd sit calmly, peacefully, while I told him about the True Nature Of A Twinkie. Beneath the sage smile, he'd be thinking "get this guy away from meeeeheeee..."