Check this out: ‘The Egg’

I found this on Stumbleupon and I had to share it, I think if the human race adopted life based on this principle things would be amazing! Read this, if it makes you think half as much as it did me it will blow your mind:

 

The Egg

By: Andy Weir

 

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.

 

Check this out: ‘The Egg’ – http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2Y71nX/:1bLRwYj8:joFYDC_B

Credit: Andy Weir

Simon 🙂

19 thoughts on “Check this out: ‘The Egg’

      1. Well. I don’t believe it, because it contradicts everything I know about science, but it’s still a sort of mind-blowing idea. I could go into how the idea of everyone being everyone else (and thus every time someone hurts someone else they’re hurting themselves) connects to bullying, but that could take up a whole post. Ideas that are crazy cool but also don’t fit in my preconceived view of the universe tend to get this reaction from me. Just a speechless…Oh. GEEZ.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I prefer to believe that existence is simply a matter of science, and can definitely be understood. That’s actually the overarching motivation of my blog (and my major). The idea that anyone can understand science if it’s explained properly, and that will lead to greater understanding.

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      3. For the time being, yes. As long as there’s more to explore, exploring what we know will lead to more unknown. But there can’t be an infinite unknown if indeed the laws of physics apply universally. I never thought I’d type the words “I believe” in relation to science, but here I go…I believe the universe—or, indeed, the multiverse—works in a certain way, and there is a finite number of explanations for processes to be found. HOWEVER…there may be an infinite number of permutations to how those processes evolve. For example, we have a good understanding of how life works on Earth, but we’re constantly discovering new life forms on our own planet. That could be true throughout the multiverse. There will be a day, I imagine, when we at last conquer all the questions of physics that have hounded scientists for centuries…we’ll conquer the mechanics of black holes, explain what exists beyond the universe, understand what caused the Big Bang in the first place. But after that…there’ll be still so much more to explore, all those planets and distant stars, and there will always be more questions to ask…but EXISTENCE itself will be understood. We’ll be applying the equations we discover for existence to all those permutations of chance throughout the multiverse, learning new things simply to enhance the old. But the overarching theory of the universe will be understood…eventually. Someday. It’s a long ways off.

        Sorry for the long comment. It’s funny, though, how much I think of science as my own brand of “religion”…it’s the only explanation of reality I trust, and my trust in it really does feel like “faith” at times. And yet, science is worlds apart from religion…

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      4. I can see how that would be appealing…a great overarching force defining all existence and keeping science that small distance away from the complete truth. The mystery of it is mind-boggling…and maybe one day all us scientists will realize we’re wrong. The point of science is that we don’t know, but we don’t use guesswork to know, as religion does—we need proof. Maybe, if the universe works in a way that has something in common with religion, that will be science’s failing since it can’t accept an answer that can’t be proven. But you know, it would take belief to leap over that resultant gap between science and religion. And that’s something I don’t have. Make me a good argument, and I might consider it…but I prefer to deal in the black and white, in proof and evidence and logical conclusion. Is this too narrow-minded a view? Perhaps. I don’t see it that way. But the ancient Greeks didn’t see their views as narrow-minded when they were trapped in the paradigm of the Earth being the center of the universe. It’s possible that Plato was right, and our observations only allow us a distorted interpretation of reality. If that’s the case, then science falls short…I choose to believe in it, though 🙂

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