You were on your way home when you died.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s when you met me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2026 what happened?\u201d You asked. \u201cWhere am I?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou died,\u201d I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a\u2026 a truck and it was skidding\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYup,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2026 I died?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYup. But don\u2019t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. \u201cWhat is this place?\u201d You asked. \u201cIs this the afterlife?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMore or less,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you god?\u201d You asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYup,\u201d I replied. \u201cI\u2019m God.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy kids\u2026 my wife,\u201d you said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about them?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWill they be all right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I like to see,\u201d I said. \u201cYou just died and your main concern is for your family. That\u2019s good stuff right there.\u201d<\/p>\n
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d I said. \u201cThey\u2019ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn\u2019t 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\u2019s any consolation, she\u2019ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d you said. \u201cSo what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither,\u201d I said. \u201cYou\u2019ll be reincarnated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAh,\u201d you said. \u201cSo the Hindus were right,\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll religions are right in their own way,\u201d I said. \u201cWalk with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
You followed along as we strode through the void. \u201cWhere are we going?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNowhere in particular,\u201d I said. \u201cIt\u2019s just nice to walk while we talk.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what\u2019s the point, then?\u201d You asked. \u201cWhen I get reborn, I\u2019ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot so!\u201d I said. \u201cYou have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don\u2019t remember them right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. \u201cYour 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\u2019s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it\u2019s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you\u2019ve gained all the experiences it had.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven\u2019t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you\u2019d start remembering everything. But there\u2019s no point to doing that between each life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many times have I been reincarnated, then?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.\u201d I said. \u201cThis time around, you\u2019ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWait, what?\u201d You stammered. \u201cYou\u2019re sending me back in time?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere you come from?\u201d You said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh sure,\u201d I explained \u201cI come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you\u2019ll want to know what it\u2019s like there, but honestly you wouldn\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d you said, a little let down. \u201cBut wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don\u2019t even know it\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what\u2019s the point of it all?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSeriously?\u201d I asked. \u201cSeriously? You\u2019re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn\u2019t that a little stereotypical?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell it\u2019s a reasonable question,\u201d you persisted.<\/p>\n
I looked you in the eye. \u201cThe meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean mankind? You want us to mature?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust me? What about everyone else?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no one else,\u201d I said. \u201cIn this universe, there\u2019s just you and me.\u201d<\/p>\n
You stared blankly at me. \u201cBut all the people on earth\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll you. Different incarnations of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWait. I\u2019m everyone<\/em>!?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow you\u2019re getting it,\u201d I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m every human being who ever lived?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOr who will ever live, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Abraham Lincoln?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you\u2019re John Wilkes Booth, too,\u201d I added.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Hitler?\u201d You said, appalled.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you\u2019re the millions he killed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Jesus?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you\u2019re everyone who followed him.\u201d<\/p>\n You fell silent.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time you victimized someone,\u201d I said, \u201cyou were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you\u2019ve done, you\u2019ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.\u201d<\/p>\n You thought for a long time.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy?\u201d You asked me. \u201cWhy do all this?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause someday, you will become like me. Because that\u2019s what you are. You\u2019re one of my kind. You\u2019re my child.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhoa,\u201d you said, incredulous. \u201cYou mean I\u2019m a god?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. Not yet. You\u2019re a fetus. You\u2019re still growing. Once you\u2019ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo the whole universe,\u201d you said, \u201cit\u2019s just\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAn egg.\u201d I answered. \u201cNow it\u2019s time for you to move on to your next life.\u201d<\/p>\n And I sent you on your way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1520,1521],"class_list":["post-23422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leben","tag-andy-weir","tag-kurzgeschichte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrechsteiner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrechsteiner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrechsteiner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrechsteiner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrechsteiner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrechsteiner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23423,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrechsteiner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23422\/revisions\/23423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrechsteiner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrechsteiner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrechsteiner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}