Something I really like about shooting is that no matter how much time you spend preparing, no matter how much money you spend on equipment, no matter what is going on in the world or in the space around you, the only thing that controls where the bullet goes happens in an infinitesimal moment of time between when the bullet begins to move and when it emerges from the barrel. You could be completely calm or completely chaotic before that moment but if you are able to do it right just long enough, just for that tiny amount of time, the shot will ring true and if you cannot, it never will.
I don't know of anything else where such a short, singular period of time has the same impact not only on the outcome of the specific action but potentially much further. A single shot can result in the satisfaction of a perfectly placed hole in a paper target, or surviving starvation a bit longer, or an Olympic win. It can also result in changing lives, your own, someone else's, sometimes entire nations.
If I think about life as a line, that fraction of a moment when the bullet travels down the barrel can cause a more severe departure from that line than any other event of similar duration that I can think of. There are other things that can happen just as fast or faster, but none I can conjure can be contained in that time, they all require preparation or premeditation that must be in place before the event, and in most cases cannot be reversed once in motion. The bullet can start or stop within milliseconds before the powder is ignited, and even after its course can be altered before the bullet leaves the barrel of the gun.
To me this is an incredibly spiritual realization. Understanding this explains the feeling I have when I'm using a gun. When I am at the range, or when I have been hunting, so much activity surrounds those few moments of actually pulling the trigger, but for those tiny moments, everything around me collapses into a singularity, it is an incredible feeling of presence, an awareness that nothing exists other than right now, that what happens next can change everything, and change nothing.
I'm writing this in hopes that it will inspire others to think more about shooting, especially those who do it.