DonGar

One of the problems with reincarnation is that the number of people in the world is going up, not down. If there are X souls in the universe which all get their turn on the wheel of life until they reach perfection, you’d expect the number of people to be going down as a few of them slowly become perfect.

So, my thought is that maybe reincarnation works in reverse timewise. If you don’t reach perfect, you move back in time, and get a new life that will end when your current one begins.

Assume that the human race ends in a galaxy wide civilization of untold zillions with almost limitless technology and knowledge. A great many figure out how to be perfect while living in this easy time to live, but a some don’t and are thrown ‘back’ in time to live until when their previous lives’ began, and so on.

The current world population is just under 6.8 billion and when I was born it was around 3.5 billion. That means that a lot of people are still figuring things out at a really good rate. This means that your chances are reaching perfection in the next few lives are truly excellent. Of course, if you don’t figure things out pretty soon, you may be one of the very few who repeats things for many thousands more (very short) lives as  a caveman back until the beginning of the species.

Maybe I should found a religion?

I’ve been listening to the news lately, and what’s most struck me is that we (as a society) are only listening to the most extreme statements on any issue. What this means is that we never even hear calm rational people. Problems and controversy can be created by anyone willing to jump up and down and lie in an entertaining way.

In the US, this has created many false problems out of thin air. Many people believe there is a ‘debate’ about evolution. People are refusing to vaccinate their children (which is killing people). A speech to encourage kids to stay in school has turned into a national controversy.

Worse, real problems that need to be addressed simply can’t even be discussed in ways likely to lead to workable solutions. Major issues that come to mind include the Iraq War, global climate change, health care reform. In each of these cases, small groups that shout loudly enough can freeze the rest of us into near inaction (perhaps symbolic gestures that solve nothing).

I think that solving this could move our society forward a long ways. Sadly, I don’t think there are any simple solutions.

I’ve recently heard a lot of bad news from friends of mine, much of it health related, and this has started me thinking. When we hear something horrible (your friend X has cancer), our instinct is to try and help. This is obviously a good thing.

However, our first instinct is to try and do this in a dramatic way, to show how much the we care, to show how much this upsets us, to rail about how we wish that we could make it better. Most of this is focused on us, not on the people that are really in trouble. We are trying to reach out that extra mile just to show how much we care.

I’m starting to think that it’s much better to handle news like this in a bland and boring way. Just listen, offer your sympathies, and don’t really do much else unless you can think of a real way to make a difference. This probably just means waiting and being ready to help AFTER your friends are ready to for it. In the mean time, show you are there for them, but give them enough space to deal with things in their own way.

By staying calm and controlled you can help your friends and family stay in control and deal with the real issues. This is the exact opposite of trying to show how upset we are, and so doesn’t seem as natural. However, I think it does more actual good.