[W]e are, in the main, ordinary people living in plush times. We are smart enough to get by, responsible enough to raise a couple of kids, thrifty to sock away for a vacation, and industrious enough to keep the lights on. We like our cars. We love a good cheeseburger. We’d die without air-conditioning. In the great mass of humanity that’s ever lived, we are distinguished only by our creature comforts, but on the whole, mediocre.
That mediocrity is oft-exemplified by the claim that though we are unremarkable in this easy world, something about enslavement, degradation and poverty would make us exemplary. We can barely throw a left hook–but surely we would have beaten Mike Tyson.
I am reminded of when past life regression was somewhat en vogue, also vision questing. Apparently in our past lives we were all princesses and pirates; our guardian animals are bears and eagles.
Amateur diagnoses with special psychological conditions that address our personal shortcomings by turning them into unique abilities seem to fill this gap.Report
Annie: I think probably with my love of four-legged creatures and hooves and everything, that in another lifetime I was probably Catherine the Great, or maybe Francis of Assisi. I’m not sure which one. What do you think, darlin’?
Crash: How come in former lifetimes, everybody is someone famous? [Laughs.] I mean… [both laugh] … How come nobody ever says they were Joe Schmo?
Annie: [still laughing] Because it doesn’t work that way, you fool!Report
“And frankly, sports fans, he used a certain word that’s a ‘no-no’ with umpires.”Report
Actually thing that really bothered me about past life regression was that given the world’s population is at an all-time high, a significant number of people (perhaps a majority) would be first-timers with no past life at all. In fact I think the number of people today is greater than the number that have died in the past 5000 years or so; which means that the average person should have only 1 past life within human history.Report
You’re overthinking it. Souls are getting diffuse. This is why the people in the past are such giants and everyone you know is, like, “Just Wally” (or whomever). Cleopatra had a whole soul to herself. We all have 1/128th of a soul or something like that.
Those of us who aren’t recycled animals, anyway.Report
Coates is entirely right. Perhaps what we need is a good, solid, invigorating war to toughen us up?
On another paranormal topic, I’m waiting for the alien invasion. I judge it to be more probable now than ever, because now we’ve mostly learned to groom ourselves. We make better pets that way.
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Maybe martians could do it better than we’ve done.
I know this for sure: martians could beat Mike Tyson.Report
And here I was hoping someone would be hammering on their piglet.Report
I am a past life regressionist and have never had a client who experienced being famous or infamous in a past life.Report
I am a past life regressionist
No, you’re not.Report
“I am a past life regressionist and have never had a client who experienced being famous or infamous in a past life.”
I’m pretty sure I was Ghenghis Khan in a past life, actually. The guilt I feel over all the innocents I casually murdered is what drives me to make a difference today. Or at least that’s what I’m planinng on writing about for my med school application essay. (But, ya know, I don’t really admit this very often, but secretly, somewhere deep inside, I’m kind of proud.)Report