Mostly unrelated to the main metaphor of this post, several months ago I read a book about souls that had some interesting thoughts but premises that ultimately felt too much like BS. The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav – would not recommend but would not say it’s bad either. Disclaimer, I am not the most spiritual person. I still don’t really believe in souls, so it was ironic for me when the following question popped into my head one morning. If I were a soul, would it be better to float around forever in soul world than to choose life, be born, and experience our reality? This assumes a couple of things like the existence of souls of course, and that souls become humans.
Actually, the inspiration for this question came as I was reading a portion of The Birth of Tragedy that assumes life is suffering, and art arose as a way to both cope with this fact but also allow us to embrace the suffering and create meaning. Really, it’s the first part, the life is suffering part that caused a spark. In college, a similar question was asked in a philosophy class: Is it moral to have children? The idea is that children don’t choose to be born and there is a lot of suffering they can endure once born. That question is a little more tilted towards agency and us making choices for someone that is not ourself.
Back to the point – souls and choosing life. What I find interesting is in a sense life is not really about us, our goals, or our expectations – it’s more just happening. I mean life as in human life being a thing not the meaning of life. We have hard-wired tendencies in our genes (for example to avoid potentially deadly things), but we aren’t born with the rational kind of knowledge. We aren’t born with desires or a plan with what to do in life, and we aren’t really given time to study and prepare either. As soon as you’re born your one chance has started, the clock is ticking. I’m not saying it’s unfair, but wow! That is crazy!
If you’re a floating soul maybe at best you know there is such a thing as human incarnation, but that would be all you know. Otherwise there would be some direction and knowledge at the point of entry (birth) that you the soul had brought with you to life. There is none! We are just babies.
As a soul, choosing to be born is a little like walking into an arcade with a single token. You’ll walk around for a while. Eventually you choose a game, maybe a skill crane to play. You play the game. Most likely you don’t win the prize, though perhaps you do win a teddy bear or something. Well, you didn’t know before walking in that actually you can’t take anything you win with you. If you are observant, you may have noticed this fact while walking around and seeing others play their game then leaving. Perhaps this made you a bit more careful and cautious, or maybe it didn’t. Maybe you were inspired to immediately play the same game you just saw played. Maybe you didn’t even think about it too much and played something that caught your eye. One thing is for sure, once your token is used, it’s used, and you’re out so someone else can come in to play. If you don’t use your token, I guess the arcade manager doesn’t like wastes of space because you’ll be getting kicked out, too. Then there are the edge cases like where you can steal someone’s token and not get kicked out. The manager is there, but they don’t do a perfect job.
The point, once it starts, it’s going to happen. Life is going to happen, and then life will have happened. As they say, the end is decided at the beginning. While that is true, what we don’t know is how life will happen. We can nurture that little bit of endless possibility, endless diversity, and endless opportunity.
Now, a little bit on meaning. Let’s say as a soul I escaped the soul matrix and I glimpsed this mystical arcade. Do I choose life? I don’t know. I’d have to be a real soul to answer. Practically, the question doesn’t matter because I’m already alive. Assuming it is a yes to life though, there are still follow up questions. When is the right time to enter the arcade – ancient Greece arcade, 1800s arcade, or post-Internet arcade? Does it matter if the games are manual buttons or touch screen or through a VR headset? Probably not. Does it matter who else is in the arcade at the same time? I default to yes because I care about people I’ve met and shared life with, but again probably not. You wouldn’t have known any of these other players when floating in soul world. It would be the equivalent of making an informed decision on no information which is funny.
If you would like to float as a soul for eternity I think that’s up to you – I don’t have enough to say which is better. On the other hand, if you will eventually enter life it seems it doesn’t matter when you do, but once in, I think you should live it, not let it happen. How to do that correctly? I wish I knew. One step at a time.
