This was originally a comment on Cole Haddon’s excellent 5AM StroyTalk. He does excellent interviews with working artists and has interesting insight, as.
"The people who recovered these lives were always someone famous or powerful. Everyone was Cleopatra or an African prince or part of Arthur's court, etc."
I realize this is a side point, but you may not have talked to the right people.
(And maybe crystal-gazing and hypnotism aren't the way, actually. People WILL pay for being told what appeals to their ego, this is true. Hence there ARE frauds. The existence of frauds, however, does not DISprove other possibilities.) :-)
"No one, and I mean no one, was ever the guy shoveling shit in the stables."
Yet note: even in THIS one life, our memories are selective, not a complete readout nor a random sample.
When and if at some point your own life "flashes before your eyes" (I hope not soon!) do you think it will mostly feature making coffee, cleaning the cat box, riding the subway, unloading the dishwasher, watching Netflix, or equivalents?
Even in a very humble llfe, I think it is more likely that what powerful experiences there were (and most people have some) would be most likely to leave a mark in later lives if there are such things. And truly boring lives, or ones that are greatly foreshortened, might not leave lasting traces at all.
I write this not to change any minds, but only to point out that these particular arguments are chestnuts of minimal weight in themselves.
Though if course anyone is entitled to their own estimation. :-)
“I realize this is a side point, but you may not have talked to the right people.”
That is entirely possible, but what I am describing is my experience with the phenomenon. It always bugged me, felt like an attempt to abandon the reality that “little people” matter.
As for the other point:
Knowing my subconscious, it’ll probably be a reel of my worst moments (the voices in my head are very rude to me)
Accurate, but I don’t think I would ever convince myself in that moment that I was ever president
I may have been flip about this, but my experience with it really did bug me, as noted above. I think it a deep flaw in the US character that many if not most of us see ourselves as temporarily embarrassed heroes rather than members of a community. The past-life people I encountered very much played into that, in my opinion, and I find that less than good.
Your experience may very be different, but that is how I experienced it.
Interesting post. A very honorable and defensible position.
In my (self-published) novel, I did try to square that circle. The conceit was—as a high-functioning early-onset schizophrenic, the MC managed to develop an extraordinary ability to 'deal w/ voices'. And since the magic-system was contingent upon dealing w/ extra-dimensional being that present that way, it ended up elevating him to 'chosen one' status. Sort of The Good Doctor meets Doctor Fate.
But, I'm very interesting in exploring your hatred of The Hero's Journey. I think much of what's wrong w/ 21st Century art is that it's abandoned it. You know I love an involved discussion/debate. Maybe we can cross-post?
I wish I could get into Trek, since it is by all accounts the deeper franchise, but I refused to watch it as a child because it competed with Star Wars, and the series is too vast to approach at this point.
Not to defend the psychomania of the Star Wars fandom at large, (esp. given the harassment campaigns after TLJ) but there were lots of actual structural problems with that movie that make it sub par. Notably: Luke’s unexplained character changes; the weird handling of Leia/Carrie Fisher; the beginnings of squandering Finn as a character
With respect to Last Jedi — yeah, I wasn’t trying to make a brief for the whole thing. It obviously suffers from making decisions that the rest of the franchise doesn’t entirely support or setup (I do think Luke’s character arc is believable, but I do agree its not established). I was just referring to a segment that seemed to be really upset that Rey was a nobody.
If you want to get into Str Trek, the newest, Strange New Worlds is good and captures the spirit well, I think, and has few enough episodes that I think you could get into it without too much time commitment. I do believe you could just watch the latest episode as there isn’t that much backstory to leave you feeling lost.
"The people who recovered these lives were always someone famous or powerful. Everyone was Cleopatra or an African prince or part of Arthur's court, etc."
I realize this is a side point, but you may not have talked to the right people.
(And maybe crystal-gazing and hypnotism aren't the way, actually. People WILL pay for being told what appeals to their ego, this is true. Hence there ARE frauds. The existence of frauds, however, does not DISprove other possibilities.) :-)
"No one, and I mean no one, was ever the guy shoveling shit in the stables."
Yet note: even in THIS one life, our memories are selective, not a complete readout nor a random sample.
When and if at some point your own life "flashes before your eyes" (I hope not soon!) do you think it will mostly feature making coffee, cleaning the cat box, riding the subway, unloading the dishwasher, watching Netflix, or equivalents?
Even in a very humble llfe, I think it is more likely that what powerful experiences there were (and most people have some) would be most likely to leave a mark in later lives if there are such things. And truly boring lives, or ones that are greatly foreshortened, might not leave lasting traces at all.
I write this not to change any minds, but only to point out that these particular arguments are chestnuts of minimal weight in themselves.
Though if course anyone is entitled to their own estimation. :-)
“I realize this is a side point, but you may not have talked to the right people.”
That is entirely possible, but what I am describing is my experience with the phenomenon. It always bugged me, felt like an attempt to abandon the reality that “little people” matter.
As for the other point:
Knowing my subconscious, it’ll probably be a reel of my worst moments (the voices in my head are very rude to me)
Accurate, but I don’t think I would ever convince myself in that moment that I was ever president
I may have been flip about this, but my experience with it really did bug me, as noted above. I think it a deep flaw in the US character that many if not most of us see ourselves as temporarily embarrassed heroes rather than members of a community. The past-life people I encountered very much played into that, in my opinion, and I find that less than good.
Your experience may very be different, but that is how I experienced it.
When my life flashes before my eyes on my deathbed, I can't help but think my last thought will be: "This all could've been an email..." ;-)
Interesting post. A very honorable and defensible position.
In my (self-published) novel, I did try to square that circle. The conceit was—as a high-functioning early-onset schizophrenic, the MC managed to develop an extraordinary ability to 'deal w/ voices'. And since the magic-system was contingent upon dealing w/ extra-dimensional being that present that way, it ended up elevating him to 'chosen one' status. Sort of The Good Doctor meets Doctor Fate.
But, I'm very interesting in exploring your hatred of The Hero's Journey. I think much of what's wrong w/ 21st Century art is that it's abandoned it. You know I love an involved discussion/debate. Maybe we can cross-post?
I'll reach out, K... < thumbs up >
I wish I could get into Trek, since it is by all accounts the deeper franchise, but I refused to watch it as a child because it competed with Star Wars, and the series is too vast to approach at this point.
Not to defend the psychomania of the Star Wars fandom at large, (esp. given the harassment campaigns after TLJ) but there were lots of actual structural problems with that movie that make it sub par. Notably: Luke’s unexplained character changes; the weird handling of Leia/Carrie Fisher; the beginnings of squandering Finn as a character
With respect to Last Jedi — yeah, I wasn’t trying to make a brief for the whole thing. It obviously suffers from making decisions that the rest of the franchise doesn’t entirely support or setup (I do think Luke’s character arc is believable, but I do agree its not established). I was just referring to a segment that seemed to be really upset that Rey was a nobody.
If you want to get into Str Trek, the newest, Strange New Worlds is good and captures the spirit well, I think, and has few enough episodes that I think you could get into it without too much time commitment. I do believe you could just watch the latest episode as there isn’t that much backstory to leave you feeling lost.