I was thinking about it in the bathroom stall at work a couple of days ago. I should have been in the Army – I’ve said that enough times now that it’s probably true. Long ago, I thought that I’d need about 4 lives to accomplish what I wanted to do. In one I’d do what I’m doing, in another, I’d stick with the academic route, and in the other two I’d be a military guy, Air Force and Army. The thought of these multiple life scenarios got me thinking about reincarnation, not so much because I believe it in, but more because I find it to be logically inconsistent.
So, if there’s reincarnation, why don’t more people know what they used to be? Sure, some think they do, but even they don’t think they’re just a continuation of the same consciousness. I, meanwhile, am yesterday’s person plus today. My recollection meaningfully connects what used to be my conscious self to what currently is. It is this continuation of being that defines me (and you for that matter) – I am the collection of my thoughts, feelings, dreams and experiences.
Let’s say I was a WWII airman in my last life – who isn’t after all? I remember Sully and Hank, my name was Tommy and we crashed into a glacier and were entombed in ice. How is that useful again? It’s not like I, me, yesterday’s person one day further along, have had the opportunity to build 22000 days worth of experiences on a previous foundation. Those people think they were something else in another life. Even if they were, it’s useless – they don’t get to reap the benefit of living more than once. Without the accumulated set of experiences, that previous life is no more you than some old photograph – two dimensional, frozen in time.
Understandably, this transitioned to the idea of losing one’s memory in some brain malfunction. If my collective sum of experiences were deleted, the old me would no longer exist. I am what I have been, not what I could have been or wanted to be, but what I have been. People try to reinvent themselves by moving to where nobody knows who you once were…but you still do, and you’re still you. If you lost your mind though, then you’d be nobody. You’d disconnect from your past, start new, be different, under no obligation to be who you are, whatever that once was. Of course, you’d still be old and your achilles’ would still be busted. But you can’t deny it’d be interesting to blow it all up and start it all over.
How old is too old to do that, do you think?
Words 
That just hurt my brain. I think I’m gonna come back and read this after I’ve had a few more swigs of beet/romaine/kale juice.
Hmm, well I think that there are some innate character traits and tendencies that we are born with that are certainly shaped by previous experiences, but not necessarily completely defined by them. So, while if you lost your memory right now you wouldn’t be able to make future decisions based on the memories of past experiences, I tend to think that you would make similar, repeatable choices based on your innate character traits. Though I have no idea to what extent this is true or whether it varies from person to person.
How old is too old to start over? The feel-good answer is never, but in reality, once you have formed dependent relationships, I can’t help but feel it would be a bit selfish to just walk away.