For Those That Haven't Stumbled On This Little Lesson; 'The Egg'

I read this a LONG time ago. Just saw it posted somewhere the other night and wanted to share. I also don't know how to use ; but I like it. Guarantee this has been posted. Sometimes it's good to see things again. Question at the end for you all, or us, or me. O_o.

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.

Is I me? Are the two talking still the same person and that's part of it?

Link

its a good little insight into how we the people should treat each other....i read that a while ago.....i like it

THANK YOU sooooo much for posting this! I have been looking for it (off and on) for a long time now. I have read it before, but it still blows my mind every time I read it.

Do you know that you can't just put "the egg" or "egg story" in a search engine and find it?! I've tried and have not had success.

When I first read this it made so much sense and put everything I was learning at the time into perspective. I am now going to print this out for my 18 yr old so he can read it for himself as opposed to me trying in vain to explain it.

reply to post by Domo1


I hadn't read 'The Egg' before - interesting concept thank you.

Already Done...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

How ever I would like to add this...Imagine this one spirit living out the lives of humankind that ever existed on this Earth from all time ? I suspect the Multiverse was also created for this "One" to experience different outcomes in History so he may technically be living every life from an infinite number of realities.

Don't Discount the Creator, to limit his capabilities in your thinking would be like an insult to Him. I look out and see an immense and nearly immeasurably vast "Sandbox" in all directions, I also think these sandboxes would be stacked sideways alongside each other. Its easier to understand these "simulations" if you make the analogy between a computer running multiple version of one game on/in the same memory chips inside a PC, technically with enough ram you can just keep running simulations if you had enough processing power. Each with some slightly different outcomes to make it interesting for the participant.

Circa 108 Billion Humans ever.
Given that the vast majority will have lived for less than 40 years that's still a conservative estimate of 4320 Billion Years in the Egg- No Thank You.

4000 billion years (given the sun is only 4.6 billion old) seems a bit long if at the end of it all my job is seemingly to blow the minds of lower lifeforms in some sort of weird metaphysical training camp.


It also occurs to me that in terms of "God Training"; living multiple lives on Earth is probably the equivalent of allowing ants more time at a Disco in the hope they will become great musicians.

Thought provoking but depressingly unimpressive anthropomorphism of any potential God.

reply to post by mazzroth


Oh has it been? Did we read the first paragraph? Go poke a drop bear.

The Egg is always a good read, an excellent philosophical morsel to chew on. But...what good is having an ATS search engine if no one uses it? This story has been posted several times already.

It's better if you read the God lines in Morgan Freeman's voice.

Good concept in the story...very humbling.

It's an interesting story but here comes moany old me to pick nits...[sorry].
In one sentence the 'god' says that the reason for all this is to grow mentally, to learn and to basically 'get more insightful, intelligent, more peaceful [as humans].

However just the other day I wanted to pose the question "why do humans NEVER learn from history"?

The way I see it humans will never change as a whole. Nevermind all the technology and knowledge we have, we are exactly the same humans that we were thousands of years ago.

All the greek philosophers were deep thinkers and highly insightful. They were the Einsteins and Hawkins' of their time. People like that have always existed only their surroundings were different from today.
There will be more of them in the future.

On the other hand there were always idiots, greedy people, cruel and violent people and so on. They also existed thousands of years ago, they exist now [even more of them because more humans are alive than in the past].
I sometimes despair when I see those dragged along by well meaning, intelligent, peaceful humans and they just behave in the exact way a medieval [stupid] peasant may have behaved [I am aware that there must have been clever peasants as well, I don't mean them].

As a matter of fact, i sometimes look around the pub and see peasants, the only difference is their clothing or the gadgets they now have.

But human kind is NOT in any way getting cleverer or nicer now, we are what we are. Now, then and forever.

I believe [sort of] in reincarnation and I can see the theory of the 'mixing up souls and then dividing them again'. I formed that theory as a 10 year old [but used different words]. It makes some sort of sense but none of that will ever make the human race as a whole 'better'. You can only be glad that there will always be decent people, that is all we can do.

reply to post by Domo1


I am with you...sometimes a good thread needs to be redone to give others an opportunity to know it exist. I would not have had the opportunity to read this without you. The search engine has more benefit to see if a topic you are going to present has been done recently or a specific situation has been reported yet.

That is a very thought provoking way of thinking about existence and reincarnation. I think many view reincarnation as though the time they leave will be the same time they re-enter. There is no concept of time when we dream, so it stands to reason that reincarnation is not relegated to a specific order; lessons need to be learned and the place and time we do it are certainly going to be different each time.

The conversation has the makings of a schizophrenic character talking to themselves, but we are all connected and therefore I am you and you are me. I think the "egg" reference is very interesting. We all are constantly seeking to know what came first, the chicken or the egg? In order to have an egg you would need 2 chickens to procreate, right? so wouldn't you need 2 eggs first? Very perplexing and just one of the many mysteries of our existence that is difficult to grasp.

So, if they are the fetus, how were they conceived? Out of thin air? We exist somehow, but have no idea how.

reply to post by Domo1


I would suggest, however, I was under the impression this had been done here before...you just gave a link, perhaps giving credit to any of the other threads would be appropriate.

reply to post by soulpowertothendegree


Incidentally, I just tested your theory. Your claim was that the search engine is ineffective when looking for old threads. I entered "the egg story" in the search box, and guess what? The first result was The Egg story as posted by ToTheTenthPower. In other words: excuses, excuses...people just don't want to use the search engine for some bizarre reason.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

He/she did not claim that the search engine is ineffective when looking for old threads.

Nice....ill b back later....

Jukiodone
Circa 108 Billion Humans ever.
Given that the vast majority will have lived for less than 40 years that's still a conservative estimate of 4320 Billion Years in the Egg- No Thank You.

4000 billion years (given the sun is only 4.6 billion old) seems a bit long if at the end of it all my job is seemingly to blow the minds of lower lifeforms in some sort of weird metaphysical training camp.


It also occurs to me that in terms of "God Training"; living multiple lives on Earth is probably the equivalent of allowing ants more time at a Disco in the hope they will become great musicians.

Thought provoking but depressingly unimpressive anthropomorphism of any potential God.

You missed the bit regarding 'time' didn't you?

Itisnowagain
reply to post by AfterInfinity

 

He/she did not claim that the search engine is ineffective when looking for old threads.

edit on 20-1-2014 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

Whatever. I just find it hilarious that ToTheTenthPower posted this story back in 2010 and got maybe four or five stars for it. Then someone posts a repost of a repost of the story and gets more recognition than when the story first came out.

AfterInfinity
Whatever. I just find it hilarious that ToTheTenthPower posted this story back in 2010 and got maybe four or five stars for it.

Is that when you first read it? Had you read 'the egg story' prior to today on ATS?
I suspect that some had not been members when the egg story was posted last time. If one had never heard the story one could not look it up because it had not entered their consciousness until now.

I think it is a story which would make one treat apparent others as oneself would like to be treated.
I like it very much.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

This was the first I've ever seen of the Egg story, thanks to the op. What good would a search engine be to me in this instance ? If a reader sees this story and realizes that they've viewed it before....just move along and find something new .