Past Living

The idea of Reincarnation and Past lives is not knew in this world of crazy ideas. And, to be fair, out of all the crazy ideas it certainly isn't the craziest. Several high-profile religions follow the belief that we are reincarnated after death, including Hinduism and Buddhism. Even some Christians believe in Reincarnation, though the Bible clearly states: "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:" (Hebrews 9:27)

I like the idea of reincarnation because in some small way it is a piece of me living on. I like that idea, like anyone else I'm sure. We all want to live forever in some shape or form. So why not as another person or an animal? Or even as plants? I would love to be a weeping willow tree, I think. Or a red maple. They are both very beautiful trees. Or maybe a rose? I would want to be a white rose.

Going back to past lives though, many people believe that they were someone else in a past life. However, according to an article I read on MSNBC's website this is due to memory errors which creates "false memories". This is also attributed to a sense of deja vu, or the feeling of having been somewhere before. Also, it pointed out that most people only claim to have been famous people once. Past lives are never boring.

To be fair, who wants to say "I was a child who died of *insert any disease here* during the 1800's" (which was very common) or "I was a housewife who had three children and lived to the ripe old age of 82 before passing away in my sleep" or "I was a total nobody who never did anything exciting and died a boring/normal death" or even "I was a greyhound bus who couldn't go below 50mph (miles per hour) or I would blow up, along with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock". Oh wait, that last one might be too exciting for a past life.

It is much more exciting to say "I was Sarah Winchester and I was so haunted by spirits that I built an ever changing house to escape and confuse them" or "I was Catherine de Medici and I was madly in love with my husband who never actually loved me back" or "I was Anne Boleyn and I didn't sleep with my brother, but lost my damn head anyway" or "I was the Eiffel Tower".

Personally, I can understand why people would want to be somebody famous in a past life. Everyone wants some kind of adventure. Why not say they were adventurous in a past life? Personally, I think it would have been nice to just be a young Jewish girl who got married to someone I truly loved and then had a few children who grew up and had children of their own. Doesn't that sound ideal to anyone else? No? Just me? Okay, well then, moving on.

Seriously though, I have thought about this quite a bit. I firmly believe in the supernatural so I guess it comes naturally (ha, pun) to believe in reincarnation or ghosts or that life goes on after we are gone. I mean, we all want to believe in something right? That is why we have heroes and gods/goddesses. So we have something we can turn to when times are rough. Reincarnation/Past Lives are kind of the same thing I guess.

If you were to have lived a past life who/what would you want to be? Would you want to be someone famous and exciting? As for me, I think I will stick to being a Weeping Willow or the Eiffel Tower.