I thought maybe I should start keeping a journal. I figured it couldn’t do any harm, and I might as well give it a try. In several of my past lives, I kept a diary. But I can tell already that this is pointless; only one thing matters here. No – if I’m going to give this a try, I ought to at least make a proper attempt, and not quit after a paragraph.
Who am I kidding? I know this won’t last past one entry. Because it simply
doesn’t matter.
Well, if I’m only going to make one entry, I will make it worth while. Let me start
at the beginning.
Everybody hopes for an afterlife. On earth, a lot of people believe there will be an afterlife, some believe there will be two (one for good people and one for bad people) and some people don’t believe in an afterlife at all. But, no matter what, they all want there to be an afterlife. Its just human nature to not want to die, but, since death is obviously inevitable, the next best thing is to hope for another life after death.
Well, everybody dies, and likewise, everybody finds out that there is an afterlife. Many, many afterlives. It seems our life on Earth is the first life in a long chain of lives. Everyone lives their first life on Earth; everybody then progressively lives on the various other Earths that exist only for the afterlives and that seem to be only different aspects of the same planet; nobody is sure about that, but it doesn’t matter. Everybody remembers their past life (or lives, depending on how many they’ve gone through). And, once you die in your second life, you start your third life, and on and on.
Yes, well, I know that, and everybody else here knows that. Its so dull to write down things you already know by heart. A recitation of the most fundamental facts is mind numbing. I’ll skip the details; they don’t matter.
But starting about at the tenth life, something strange happens. Some people die, and don’t have another life after that. As far as anybody has been able to tell, the people that die like this stay dead; they certainly don’t experience any afterlives along with the rest of humanity; they don’t go back to their first life, and they might go somewhere else but nobody knows where that might be; it doesn’t matter. Anyway, its only a few people in the tenth life that go through true-death; maybe twenty, at most, among billions of people. But a few more go through true-death in the eleventh life, and a few more after that, and more after that. At about the thirtieth life, a fourth of people go through true-death; after that, the numbers of people who true-die pick up. Rapidly. More and more people true-die each successive life after life ten.
By life twenty nine, religious groups begin to spring up. They vary widely in what they preach or don’t preach, but all of them have one thing in common: they claim that true-death follows a definite pattern, and that it can be avoided. Many of them spend huge amounts of time and money trying to understand that pattern, and many people are drawn to the idea of avoiding true-death. None of the religions seem to agree on how to do that, exactly; but they all have their own pet theories about it.
By the thirtieth life, avoiding true-death becomes a full-blown obsession. I can see that; I was a leading psychologist in my first life, and I specialized in the psychology of crowds. Through each life, I have observed the psychology of the millions of people that move through their lives along with me. But none of that matters now. The thought of true-death sends people into mass hysteria. It is the ultimate terror. The quintessential horror. People fear nothing more than they fear true-death. The more lives one progresses through, the more chance one has of true-dying, and the more desperate one becomes to avoid it.
By the thirty-fifth life, the problems caused by and associated with this obsession for avoiding true death begin to manifest themselves.
I can’t remember if I wrote this down already, but I am in my thirty-ninth life.
Gradually, we are losing our humanity. Losing all traces of the good qualities that make us human, that separate us from savage animals. We are losing sight of everything that is good and righteous, and everything that used to matter to us, because of one thing: the horror we feel at the thought of true-death. There is nothing good in this life; civilization and society only stay intact because they must if we are ever to understand true-death or how to avoid it. In the thirty-ninth life, this life, all that matters is having another life after this one is over. That’s it. Everything else is just second-hand compared to living a fortieth life. Everything else passes away. In the thirty-fifth life, people begin changing, and not in a good way. By the thirty-ninth life, the changes in ourselves have become obvious.
I don’t pretend to be resisting the change; it is working on me, too. It started working on me lives ago. I, too, am desperate to continue living lives after this one. I, too, am losing my humanity and my goodness. Which is part of the reason I thought to try this diary; to keep myself together. To stop or slow the change. But, looking back at this diary entry, I see how many times I used the phrase ‘it doesn’t matter’. Because it simply doesn’t. Nothing matters except living another life after this one.
Its crushing. Most people, when they die after their first life and discover another life after that, and another one after that, there are simply no words for it, for the hope that fills them. A afterlife of perfect bliss would be good, of course, but the chance to live another life, to prove to yourself and to the world that you’ve learned from your mistakes and have come back from them as a better person, and to have the chance to better the world as it exists in the second life, its better than any perfect bliss could be. It’s a second chance in every sense of the word.
But what’s crushing is what comes after the hope. Desperation, in every sense of the word. A world of desperate people.
I said that this desperation, this de-humanizing change has become me as well. It has. I realized years ago that I really would do anything to live again. ANYTHING. If you came to me and told me that I would live a fortieth life if I would do just one thing, I would do it. Absolutely. I would simply do it, no matter what it is. If murdering every person in this life, savagely slaying my friends and my wife and my two sons along with everybody else in the world, if doing that would ensure a life after this for me, I know I would do it. I would do it without even having to think about it. And anybody else in their thirty-ninth life, if offered such a chance, why, they would do it too.



I thought the afterlife was supposed to be good.

Good to see you are alive and well swampthing! I was afraid Katrina had done you in...welcome home.

we really didnt have much problem with Katrina, Rita hit us harder but we were still very lucky and got off easy. thanks!

wow, that was really interesting read. I liked it. These people never get tired...

i dont get it. r you saying you are in youre 39th life now, and you would do anything do go on to your 40th?