"The Egg" by Andy Weir~

I stumbled upon this story and it struck something new in me.
All credits in the title.

You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.

A time for unfulfilled craving~

A very fine link had just been realized between a few different beliefs.
Though known by different names, it is essentially a period of time, devoted to "unfulfilled cravings".
These cravings are hardly edible sort, seeing as how it is more towards the realms of psychology and spirituality.

A long time ago, humanity have discovered that they need to set a period of time and devise ways to bring out their deepest problems from the realm of the subconscious.

Some of these are known today as ego, pride, and insecurities.

"...let's take a month or so, at least a few weeks, out of a year, and bring out the worst in us so at the very least, we can acknowledge its existence."

Once aware, we are to try and eliminate them from within, thus taking a step towards living in peace and harmony with our surroundings.

Desires that cannot be fulfilled is quite harmful- to us and those around us. We all know that somebody who:
- Needs compliments.
- Can't take a criticism.
- Needs to be respected
- Can't handle the slightest bit of disrespect. (even if it was a "maybe that was kinda disrespecting... i think" sort of incident)
- needs that extra attention. all the time.
- always, always bragging. about everything.
- always comparing.....everything.
- the know-it-all
- the one-upper

...and personally, someone who see them this way will always see them as a joke. I'm sure i have people who see me as a joke!

So if we were aware of these flaws in our characteristics, or if we feel the need to fill this void... one important question to ask would be, "to what end?"

We cause so much disharmony in our quest to fill a bottomless pit because we're afraid it would be empty!

These desires are usually caused by some sort of childhood events, neglected by parents, overly strict parents, bad group of friends, so on and so forth, and i suppose this is what they mean when they say "the tests of life are unique to each individual"

Test? Of life?

Yes! I believe these are problems we inherit at our young age, so we can solve them when we reach our age of thinking and reason.

to each his own indeed.

before i forget, some similarities are that these period of time are believed to be the time where ones' ancestors return to visit.
Also, the period ends with one wild, epic Sacred Party.

Similar ideas. Different names.
Ramadhan.
Hungry Ghost festival.
Lent.

Why we still fight over differences in form and remain oblivious to the similarities in function is beyond me.

Thanks.

The approach to success~

Everyone at one point of time, if not all the time, has thought about it. Wealth, achievement, succes. We've seen others achieve it, we go through theories and advices and case studies- lots of case studies, to find the secret of success.

What i wonder is what did they go through?

Maybe our approach to success is not entirely correct. Maybe our methods of teaching it isn't really on the right track either. Maybe the problem with what we do is the fact that we're not really trying to achieve it in our own way, but to replicate the success of others.

I don't think someone like Bill Gates found his success by following in the footsteps of another software supertycoon. Simply because there weren't any before him. Even now for that matter.

Warren Buffet kinda created whatever it is he's doing. Many who followed got their share of wealth from following him. They can't quite be as sucessful as him since they can't be the one who created what was already there. Even if they did manage to get more money than him, that success would still be Buffets'.

It's not really about the money is it?
"Wanna be successful? Do what he's doing and earn what he's earning."
-not quite.

Bill Gate's achievement would not be the monetary value held by his assets. It would be more on how he changed the course of humanity. The money is just something there so that people would take notice, and begin to understand what he's achieved. Take the money away, he would still be the guy that changed humanity, but no one would give a shit.

Maybe that's where we're seeing it wrong. We don't really want to be successful or achieve something great, we just want a lot of money. That's what was observed, that's what was understood and also taught.

So and so created this system/structure/world. If you follow it right, you can make lotsa money from it. What if you don't want to follow the system? What if you want to create on of your own? One that others would observe, understand and teach the next generation? Where do you go to learn that?

...and would you still go for it if there isn't going to be much monetary success?

My brain just fuzzed with some thoughts....
Maybe the way we view "money" needs to be reconsidered..

Introductions~

Hi there.

I used to write a lot of stuff. Now i don't.

So i'm going to try something new today.

I'm going to write about anything until i decide to write about something else.

When the flow changes, i will start the new path with a ">". Starting with a "<" means it's related to one of the previous posts.

>Today i got an insight into

> I had problems sleeping last night. I rolled around and round and bury my face into the pillow because i couldn't get something out of my head that was repeating over and over again, getting louder as it goes.

1. paranoia

2. delusion.

needs to be addressed.

>i get restless. i have something on my mind. a vague sort of idea of what to write about. but when i try and focus harder on it. my breath gets short. i get restless. i want OUT and think about other things. more surfaces but no depth.

so why do i get restless when i focus on something?

damn i used to be good at it.

shit the door just slammed shut at 1.34am.

scaaaareeeee...

>dammit it shut again!

gonna check out what that was.

>i hear small animals....screeching in quite a distance.

shouldn't have made those jokes about being home alone in a new residential area.

>i get scared when i focus on something!

but since when and why?

why is it that i don't want to get inside my own head? that place was a comfort zone!

and just to piss off the self, my next one's gonna have a lot of effort in it.