A Diatribe On Evolution In Terms Of Reincarnation

I was on my way home one day recently and as I was mindlessly driving along, a thought smashed into my mind - as they tend to do when my mind is idle (this isn't often). It was so profound a thought that I instantly wanted to explore it further and try to gain some understanding on the concept. The thought was as follows:

"What if evolution is nothing more than the reincarnation of minds, creating an automatic advancement in understanding with each reincarnated being?"

Well, upon pondering it for a short while here and there, I have decided to write down my further thoughts on the matter for observation - in the hopes that others might find this document and either refute it or add to it. So, first things first; initially, I found myself contemplating this simple statement and extrapolating on it a bit with the following. A few things, though, must be stated as already understood concepts by me personally, so that we're all on the same page.

Firstly, it must be understood to continue with this thought that as time has passed, assuming for just a moment that time is anything at all, all life forms on our planet we call Earth have slowly but surely become more and more advanced - both physically and mentally.

Secondly, the advancement of intellect has far and wide skyrocketed in the past few hundred years as far as human beings are concerned. If this were to be drawn on a chart, the inclining curve would have slowly but steadily risen at about the same ratio for hundreds of thousands of years, and then suddenly - for no particular reason - turned upwards at an astounding pace. Upon writing this very statement the thoughts hits me that the curvature of the line would appear to follow precisely the Fibonacci Series of numerals. Notice how the curvature at the outermost region is slow, but steadily increases to a tighter, swifter curve as it progresses.

Thirdly, it is apparent to I think anyone that the following statement is true: Human intellect has with each generation progressed at an astounding rate of speed. The greatest minds of the 14th century couldn't have dreamed up a Hadron Collider on their best day, but now it's second nature for almost everyone to understand what it is and what it can accomplish. There is no doubt in my mind that the concepts of the great Stephen Hawking will be mere child's play in a few hundred years.

Lastly, it is documented and understood that certain human children are able to recall places, events, and even family members from previous lives. There are no adults who exhibit this amazing talent, only children. This is center of all sorts of debates in itself, which I will leave, for now, alone entirely.

So let us move into the ponderings, shall we?

Human Into Human Reincarnation

I believe that this will be the simplest to put into words, as it was the first direction my mind wanted to wander as this thought came to my attention. It should also be the simplest to understand, as the traditional way of understanding reincarnation is the same as this would be, only that the formerly human mind would return to this plane of existence as another human.

Take, for example, the idea that if I were to die and be reincarnated - in whatever manner isn't going to be debated here - and I would return as a human, just the same as I was before. My "being" as it were (or if you prefer "soul" just use that instead) would retain the vastness of information I had collected in my previous go-round on this Earth. However, having collected certain types of information and knowledge previously, I am struck with a form of amnesia - I cannot readily call forth that information, but it is stored somewhere for safe-keeping nonetheless.

I, personally, am artistic, interested in Philosophy and Theoretical Physics. I have a strong moral and ethical compass, and an affination to outer space and ancient anythings (Cultures, Dinosaurs...). Now, if the reincarnated "me" were to become an astrologer it wouldn't be surprising, and it also wouldn't be surprising if this version of myself were to come up with new, ground-breaking ways of studying the cosmos. The reason I say this is that if this thought be correct, that the collective knowledge of all humanity is reincarnated with each generation, it would be EASIER for my next life's mind to comprehend the things I already understand now. In other words - studying the cosmos would almost seem like a natural thing for this person.

The reason I take the time to say the previous bit is this: if it be simple and second-nature for my next life's mind to study the cosmos, chances are that the basics of this would be understood and learned at a very young age, and into adulthood this person would most likely stretch the bounds of human understanding of the subject, thus pushing the envelope of human understanding and coming up with new and better ways of thinking about things such as space, time, and bodies in space. This would certainly match the concept that a previous life had assisted in this person's understanding and eventual advancement of the subject.

Therefore, a human to human reincarnation would advance the collective understanding and intellect towards a particular topic by leaps and bounds, drawing on the fact that it be simple and easy to understand the current knowledge on whatever subject, this person would have a supreme advantage in that field and be able to expound upon everything, including previous life's experiences without even realizing it, and create a quantum leap in understanding.

Animal Into Human Reincarnation

This pondering is fairly easy, as it pertains to the process of what a human being would be like if it's previous life were an animal of some kind. I believe it would be clear what the results would be, and rather easy to point out in the real world we live in as well. I can think of a few individuals right now that I might put into this category as possibly having happened.

The mind of an animal would obviously be centered around basic instinct - or a knee-jerk reaction based thought process, or no thought process at all and only basic emotion and reaction instincts. I can imagine racism being something that still lingers in our society because of this type of reincarnation happening. Spousal abuse, child abuse, rape, murder, etc...I can imagine all these human actions being the result of the mind of an animal being born into a human body, and it's animalistic, completely irrational behaviors being prevalent.

I'm not certain what else to add here, because I didn't have to think on this idea very long to come to the above conclusion, and I think it sums the concept up rather simply.

Human Into Animal Reincarnation

I think this will be somewhat more difficult for me to put into words my thoughts, but I will give it a go anyway. If you can follow me through the mess of trying to write down this madness, I applaud you, and will look upon you with shock and awe, my friend.

Basically, the idea here is that a human mind who has passed from this physical realm into wherever else there may be, would either be placed by an intelligence, by complete chance, or by choice into the body of an animal. I'm going to simply use the animal of African Lion for this little bit, just to try and make things as simple as possible in an impossibly unsimple thing. 

Let's say, for another example using the same animal, that I upon physical death awaken as a Lion. I have the same selective amnesia as in the previous example, and do not actively recall anything of my former life as a human. The Lion's physical brain is simply incapable of expressing thought process on the level of a human being, and with that, my "being" (again, insert "soul" if it makes you feel better) would be extremely limited in capacity, but as a retainer of vast amounts of knowledge, I may be a very clever Lion, as far as Lions are concerned.

Chances are, my new Lion self will be able to recognize dangers more quickly than my other Lion counterparts, and have a distinct advantage in the game of survival. I may, if a male Lion, be able to win dominance battles easier than other Lions due to the fact that my mind in trying to function on a completely higher level - only restricted by the brain capacity of my physical body. It wouldn't be obviously apparent that I were anything super-special outwardly, but in the end, I would most likely have the highest chance of producing offspring and controlling a Pride as my own than other Lions who hadn't had a previous existence as a human being as I had been.

As a result, my influence on the Lions around me, and my direct offspring, would be cleverness which they could copy and try to match, and eventually as generations pass, Lions in general would appear to become more clever as a whole because of the influence my formerly human mind had on them while I was in that physical form.

This is a hypothetical, and in no way do I think I'm some kind of super-human super-intelligent person and that if I were to be born again as a Lion I'd single-handedly cause an evolutionary process to occur. At the same time, though, I somehow think that if a human were to be reincarnated as an animal of any kind, this would be the result.

Human Into Animal Into Human Reincarnation

This will be quite possibly the most difficult to explain my thoughts on as I have pondered it, and the hardest to follow as I will probably fail to make any sense at all, but regardless I will try, as always.

So this concept that a human would die physically, and by some process be reincarnated as an animal, and then again physically die and be reincarnated again back into the form of a human being is quite interesting to me, for many reasons. First of all, there would be a very large gap between the first life as a human and the next, as an entire (or possibly multiple) animal life/lives is/are between them.

Let's imagine Leonardo DaVinci having been reincarnated multiple times into animal form; possibly that bluebird that visits your front porch every morning and sings a glorious song, or that elephant who would paint pictures! Wouldn't that be an interesting thing to find out, but at any rate, let's say after a few lives in animal form, his mind is finally reincarnated back into a human body. What might this person be like?

This individual would probably be excellent at classical art, and be able to restore old paintings that have lost their flavour due to age and fading. This person would most likely also be excellent at fine arts, and push the envelope in the art world to the very limits of what humans think possible. Is this work possibly an example of DaVinci reincarnated? Who knows, but if this idea be true, then I think it's very likely that whomever first came up with the concept of 3D Sidewalk Art was most likely the reincarnation of an ancient renaissance master artist.

This concludes my thoughts on this most interesting concept - as always, think for yourself and don't even believe my own words! Come to your own conclusions, and please leave a comment below!

The Most Important Decision Of Your Life When Shit Hits The Fan

So, you wake up one day and things are a bit different in the world. Perhaps you've been one of the sleeping masses all your life and today is your wake-up call; perhaps you've been awake for a while, but just didn't think today was coming so soon. Either way, today is the day that shit just got real - today's the day shit hit the fan, and you weren't ready. How could you be? Nobody's truly ready for the day you have to make the most important decision of your life, and your family's life: Do you try to stay in your home and stick it out, or do you pack up and take off?

The grid's down - electricity, cell phones, running hot water, all non-functional - and on top of that, you realize almost immediately that everyone...and I mean EVERYONE...will be flooding into every grocery store buying up everything they can get their hands on, and you need to get there, too. You need to get there yesterday.

Panic sets in; what if you're already too late and the shelves are bare? What if you get mugged on the way? What if the grid doesn't come back online...ever? Fear can be your worst enemy at this moment, but it can also motivate you to take action. So what do you do? How long will this last? The television's not working - just static. Chances are you don't have a radio inside your home, not many do these days, so you've got to get to the car to turn on the radio and see just how bad things are, and if this is just temporary or long-lasting. Good thing is, you need to get to the car anyway to make a run to the store just in the off chance there's anything left.

On the way to the store, listening to the radio broadcasting news about the fact that this madness isn't going to end anytime soon, you have to make a decision; when you get back home, do you stay or do you go? Most of us will have more than just ourselves to consider with this decision - this life or death decision - and we need to carefully weigh things out.

I'm not going to bother making a list of things to stock up on, there are literally thousands of those lists already out there that are probably better than anything I could write up. I'm going to stick to the decision of staying in your home and sticking it out there, or bugging out and going into the open to try and survive.

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STAYING HOME AND STICKING IT OUT

When SHTF and you stay home, your house had better
look like this within a day or two...

The easiest thing to do right now, especially if you have a house with a basement or storm cellar nearby, is to stay at home and stick it out. You don't have to pack up anything that way, and you have all your possessions at your disposal whenever you need them. This is what most will do in a modern-day urban survival situation when SHTF. There are pros and cons involved here, so let's take a look at staying home in this situation.

PROS

• You have shelter already and don't need to create on the fly.
• All of your possessions are there already, and there's no packing involved.
• If things get really bad, you have a sturdy shelter to barricade into.
• You know the people around you, or should already. The "community" feeling will stick for a while.
• If you have a basement/storm cellar you have a seriously good place to bunker down if intruders come around.

CONS

• Heating a larger area if the weather's cold at the time is more difficult than a smaller shelter.
• Houses are the first places desperate people check for supplies when things get bad.
• Looting will go off the charts once chaos begins, and houses are targets for intruders.

Basically, the good things are also why the bad things exist for staying in your home and trying to stick it out. If you've got a generator for when the electric goes out, it's going to make noise which will attract very unwanted attention. If you're also the only house on the block with lights on, people will be knocking down your door to get in eventually, and no amount of barricading will stop them from getting in if they really want to. Generators will also only work so long as there's gasoline to put into them, and that's something that simply won't be available like it used to - either not available at all, or available but at a cost that's even more astronomical than normal.

You'd better have a rifle and plenty of ammo already in the house before this day comes, because finding one afterwards will either cost you a fortune or force you to take a life to get your hands on one. With the massive assault on the 2nd amendment to the Constitution currently underway, it should be clear to any rational thinking person that they should cling to their weaponry instead of giving them up. You don't want to be the only person in town who doesn't have a weapon to defend him or herself with if this day comes, because there's no question that those who have guns after the SHTF date will have a much easier time of things - both defending themselves, their family, and property and also securing supplies with force if necessary. Make no mistake about it - there will come a time soon after this begins where you'll have to secure materials and supplies by force or simply intimidation by running off other would-be gatherers. Doing so without a firearm will literally be impossible.

Right at this moment, if you don't have a garden in your back yard which is at least not obvious to anyone passing by - in other words hidden from view - food is going to be a serious problem, especially in urban areas which is where the vast majority of humans are. If you're more rural, or completely rural, you're going to have an easier time of things, but after a while you'll still have the wandering band of nomadic desperate people showing up every now and then which you'll most likely have to run off at gunpoint and hope they don't do math. In just a few days' time, the first deaths of starvation will occur, and those that are in the process will literally do anything to get food. Don't think for an instant that you're off the menu, either; there are many many cases of people being trapped somewhere remote for a time, and they resorted to cannibalism just to survive. Obviously, not all of them made it out alive.

If you're surviving, and not one of the desperate, starving masses, you want to be as inconspicuous as possible. Let's face it, a lot of people simply aren't going to survive the first few months of a SHTF situation, and if you want to be one of the survivors, you've got to keep one thing in mind: it's you, and your family, vs the world. Period. Your best friend will eventually turn on you if their stomach tells them to enough times. Your family and children are the only friends you've got on the planet, and you're just going to have to deal with that fact if you want to live. Taking in "strays" (as in other people asking for help) is not an option. It will tear at your heart strings, and rip you apart inside, but it's just the way it must be. After things settle down, and the remaining people that survived, if even barely, the first few months of the crises are what's left, NOW you can seek out small groups of people and try to set up some kind of community or tribe of sorts and work together to continue surviving from then on out.

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BUGGING OUT AND LEAVING HOME

This is my actual personal Bug Out set. You should
seriously consider making your own, now!

There are some cases where simply packing up your gear and taking off is the best option. If you don't have a home with a basement or some kind of durable shelter of some kind, or if you simply realize that your house is the last place you want to be when people turn into crazed maniacs as they desperately cling to life looking for food and supplies anywhere and everywhere, it might be time to bug out. In densely populated areas, like an inner-city, or just a major metropolitan area, this is most likely the best option just because of the sheer number of people you're going to have to deal with on a daily basis on top of trying to keep yourself alive as well. There are some good and bad things with this as well.

PROS

• You can easily relocate with a stockpile of essentials and move from place to place avoiding other people who could see you as a walking restock facility.
• With the very basics of outdoor living or a bit of camping experience you can eek out an existence until things normalize.
• There are less worries of others seeking you out if you're less visible, such as in a house that's lit up with a generator.
• Disappearing for a while, or going "off the grid" as the expression goes, can be the best thing in a SHTF situation to give yourself the best chance for survival.

CONS

• If you have a large immediate family, organizing a massive "pack up and go" with only the essentials can be nearly an impossibility.
• Small children simply won't understand what's happening, and will resist leaving what they attach to as their secure home where it's always safe and secure.
• Leaving a home with a group is more difficult than alone, as there are frankly more mouths to feed and less to go around.
• If you're alone or with a family out and about, there's literally nothing between your family and would-be desperate raiders other than your firearm.

The worst part about bugging out when SHTF is that every bad thing about staying in a house to try and survive is exaggerated 100 fold when out in the open, but sometimes it's still the best option. The biggest drawback is having a family to care for while bugging out, which quite frankly most of us have. There's strength in numbers when it comes to fending off the desperate masses who would sooner kill you for your stuff than join forces with you, but at the same time with more mouths to feed and less supplies to go around things get really tricky really quickly. In the situation where a family must evacuate their home in order to survive, it's imperative that EVERY member of the family know how to handle a firearm - using common sense of course; don't give your 5 year old a rifle.

Don't forget the weapons: Rifles, handguns, shotguns, even a slingshot can come in handy. There's no substitute when it's do or die time than your firearm. Don't bring a knife to a gunfight they say, and it's unfortunately going to be all too true here, with nothing between you and other people who're desperate to get your stuff at the expense of your and your family's lives than your weapon. You can pack all the food and gear you want, but if someone comes along with a rifle and demands you give it to them or die, without a means to defend yourself, your family, and your sustenance, it doesn't matter what you packed because it's now gone.

The biggest thing here is already having your gear ready to go when the SHTF day comes, because quite frankly you won't be able to secure anything on or after that day from any store on the planet. The only time you'll have the chance to restock or get new supplies is if you happen across an abandoned house or stockpile somewhere; leaving your life, or the lives of your family, in the hands of pure chance and hope isn't very smart. Get ready beforehand, even if you think it's a long shot that anything bad will ever happen. If something DOES happen and you don't have anything prepared, you might as well turn the rifle on yourself, because you're not gonna make it, plain and simple. Reality is a harsh mistress sometimes, but the truth must be understood.

Take a few sets of communication devices with you that are battery, or crank preferably, operated which do not require the grid to be active to use such as walkie talkies. If you've got the funds, go all out when you buy some, and get the ones with the longest active range in the store, and get as many sets as you think might be necessary for your entire family to have one on them at all times. Foraging is going to be extremely important while you try and survive in the open, because those canned beans and other foodstuffs won't last forever. Communicating with your walkies will be extremely important at all times. Whenever possible, you should keep the canned foods in your pack and forage anything edible around you instead, to save the canned goods for when there's simply nothing else around you can find for sustenance. 

Know that the only people you can trust are those who share your blood - your family. Anyone else must be viewed as a potential threat and kept away from at all cost. Remember; desperate times call for desperate measures, and you're not the only one out there who's desperate. Everyone you encounter will, without a doubt, be viewing you as an exploitable recourse to keep themselves alive longer at the expense of your own life if necessary. Trust no-one other than who you bring with you, and make sure you only bring your family.

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GOOD LUCK OUT THERE

Good luck, my friends, when that fateful day comes. I wish you the best, as always, in everything you do and especially this. I wish everyone would be able to survive that situation but sadly, many will perish within just a few weeks of it happening. With the well-wishes comes my statement to you, however, that I will not stop to help you if we cross paths out there trying to survive, and don't expect you to help me, either. Much love, and stay safe in the world out there.