I came across an article, “Your Past Life Identity, According to Birth Date,” and it caught my attention enough to take a look to see what I was before I became who I am. This is what it said about being born on the 27th:
If you’re born on the 9th, 18th, or 27th, you might be able to unlock your past life all on their own. Your past life may come to you in your dreams. Music, movies, books, and museums will help you remember. Your intuitive skills have transcended lifetimes, which is why you’re an old soul who can recall memories and recognize soulmates. In another life, you were known for your psychic abilities. You might have been an oracle, a high priestess, or a witch. Whether you were spiritual or religious, you had a special connection with spirit. Some may have revered you; others may have feared you. No matter what happened in the past, give yourself grace as you find balance between the spiritual world and physical world in this lifetime.
Go ahead and click the link above if you want to discover your past life. I’ll wait. Okay, are you back? I found it a little amusing, but not meaningful. My mother was big-time into astrology, but I always thought it was bullshit. It did remind me of this old joke, though:
I get up to pee several times during the night, and sometimes I have trouble turning my mind off and falling back asleep. I think doing the LTG archives journey and Facebook memories thing is fucking with my mind. Remembering the happy (for me) life I shared with Jee Yeun and the devastation I felt when she left me is probably something I’ll never overcome. My original plan was to retire in August 2010 and move to the Philippines. Things went wrong during a preparation visit here in July 2010, and I ultimately decided to take a different path that led to marriage, buying a house, and building a shared life. We spent six months in South Carolina and six months in South Korea each year, and while I can’t say everything was perfect, it was the happiest time I’ve ever experienced in my life. When it ended, I wanted to die, and I thought I’d do it in a “Leaving Las Vegas” kind of way. I wasn’t too far down that road when I changed my mind and started walking towards a healthier lifestyle instead.
The thought that popped into my brain last night was an epiphany of sorts: maybe I’m living that “do-over life” I always fantasize about. Yes, the marriage detour took me off course for eight years, but here I am in the Philippines, living the retired life I’d dreamed about. Did I avoid past mistakes in this do-over version? Yes and no. I carried the hard lessons learned with me, but proceeded to find new ways to fuck up. And now I’ve settled into a safe and secure relationship, but I also know from past experience that it creates a vulnerability to potential pain and sorrow. So, I’ll keep my guard up and move forward into an unknown tomorrow.
On one of the Philippines forums I frequent (piatnight), I found a post about the history of Hashing that I found interesting. Just scroll on down if you don’t give a shit about the Hash.
Hashing originated in December 1938 in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, then in the Federated Malay States (now Malaysia). A group of British immigrants began meeting on Friday evenings, to run in a fashion patterned after the traditional British game of hare and hounds, in which one or two “hare” runners scatter a trail of cut paper for the “hounds” to track.[1] Apart from the excitement of chasing the hare and finding the trail, Harriers reaching the end of the trail would partake of beer, ginger beer, and cigarettes. With hash names in parentheses, the original members included Albert Stephen Ignatius Gispert (“G”), Cecil Lee, Frederick Thomson (“Horse”), Ronald Bennett (“Torch”), Eric Galvin, H.M. Doig, and John Woodrow.[2]
A. S. Gispert suggested the name “Hash House Harriers” after the Selangor Club Annex, known as the “Hash House”, where several of the original hashers lived and dined.[3][4] The “Hash House” got its name for “its hodgepodge of edible servings being passed off for food”. The term hash was used as an old British slang for “bad food”.
Hashing ceased after the Invasion of Malaya during World War II, but several of the original group restarted it in 1946, after the war, and switched to meeting on Monday evenings. A.S.I. Gispert had been killed on 11 February 1942, in the Japanese invasion of Singapore, an event commemorated by many chapters with an annual Gispert Memorial Run.
While attempting to reorganize in the city of Kuala Lumpur after World War II, hashers were informed by the Registrar of Societies that, since they were a “group”, they would require a constitution.[5] The objectives of the Hash House Harriers as recorded on the club registration card dated 1950 are:
- To promote physical fitness among our members
- To get rid of weekend hangovers
- To acquire a good thirst and to satisfy it in beer
- To persuade the older members that they are not as old as they feel
In 1962, Ian Cumming founded the second chapter in Singapore. Chapters are commonly called Kennels, following in tradition to similar Hound & Hare clubs. The idea spread through the Far East and the South Pacific, Europe, and North America, expanding rapidly during the mid-1970s.[6]
There are almost 1500 chapters in all parts of the world, with members distributing newsletters, directories and magazines, and organizing regional and world hashing events. As of 2003, there were even two organized chapters operating in Antarctica.[7]
Okay, let’s get on with the usual drivel you’ve come to expect here at LTG. It was Tuesday, and that meant heading into the city to do my grocery shopping.
But we eventually got there. Had to do my “take a deep breath, relax, accept the Filipino way” mantra while checking out at YBC. I pay by credit card, and the floor supervisor is required to enter a code before the cashier can process my payment. They only had one supervisor on duty, and she was occupied at the other cashiers for a long-ass time. Oh, and after I paid, they had to call the supervisor back to initial the receipt before I could exit the store. I’m sure they have their reasons for this process, but damn, they ought to have adequate staff on hand to implement it. Okay, rant over.
Took care of business at Royal and decided to walk the highway back home. It had been a while since I did that photo every thousand steps thing, so here you go:
Later in the day, it was back to the beach in keeping with our Tuesday traditions.
At dinner hour, we moved up the beach to Treasure Island.
We did a nightcap at Snackbar, then grabbed a trike for home. Not a bad day for a Tuesday.
It’s still July 2013 in the LTG archive journey, and in this post, I talk about getting the car loaded and ready for a road trip to Nashville, Tennessee. Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end.
I found today’s YouTube video in the LTG archives as well. Still funny and relevant twelve years later.
We’ll end this on a funny note. Hopefully:
And there you have it. To end this post on a happy note, I woke up this morning to discover water service has been restored after being dry for these past ten days.
Back tomorrow with some more tidings, assuming I don’t get squished crossing the highway tonight.
Let’s remember the late great Kris Kristofferson.
"If you waste your time a-talkin' to the people who don't listen,
"To the things that you are sayin', who do you think's gonna hear.
"And if you should die explainin' how the things that they complain about,
"Are things they could be changin', who do you think's gonna care?"
There were other lonely singers in a world turned deaf and blind,
Who were crucified for what they tried to show.
And their voices have been scattered by the swirling winds of time.
'Cos the truth remains that no-one wants to know.
Funny how people who reject the God-and-Jesus stuff find themselves made curious by the reincarnation stuff. You’ve doubtless heard the old joke about the atheist watching and laughing while the Christian and Jew each argue over how ridiculous the other’s belief system is.
I enjoyed that history of the Hash. How true do you think it is? Have you done any side research to verify it? So much is fake nonsense these days; you have to be critical of everything. I get suckered all the time. Never good to be gullible.
Star Wars vs Star Trek and why.
Thanks.
William, do you mean the memes I post or the actual shows? Either way, I like them both about equally. I think the Star Wars storyline is deeper, but Star Trek is more grounded in reality.
Kev, yes, I was raised in the church, but I took a step back in my teens and rejected the basic tenets of the Christian faith. The biblical concept of heaven (or at least the way it has been depicted) of spending an eternity in a garden paradise, petting lions, always seemed to me to be hellishly boring. Hence, I like to come up with my own version of a heavenly afterlife. The “do-over” concept is my current favorite. A key difference with the Hindu and Buddhist concepts you’ve described is that I get to carry forward all the knowledge I’ve gained in my current life. Of course, I’d use those insights to make the world a better place…for me. I’d make a killing on Wall Street buying tech stocks in the 90s. Oh, well. It’s nice to have a dream life.
Yes, that Hash history is consistent with what I’ve seen from other sources. In fact, I expect it was plagiarized. My understanding is that the founders were British soldiers in Malaysia, and it grew from there after WWII. I’ve personally Hashed in Korea, Philippines, and Thailand. Missed out on opportunities in Vietnam and Cambodia. On-On!
The biblical concept of heaven (or at least the way it has been depicted) of spending an eternity in a garden paradise, petting lions, always seemed to me to be hellishly boring. Hence, I like to come up with my own version of a heavenly afterlife. The “do-over” concept is my current favorite.
Seems just as fanciful and fantastical to me. An eisegetical heaven.
For what it’s worth, deeper, more philosophical Christian thinkers don’t believe such childish nonsense about heaven, either—the rainbows, the clouds, the flippy-flappy angels, the corny harp music. Whatever the heavenly, beatific state is, it’s beyond definition and well beyond human, mortal reckoning. If it does, in some sense, involve finding oneself before the divine Presence, and if it involves retaining one’s own consciousness as a separate thing still capable of experience, then it can’t like anything we can possibly understand. A child’s idea of heaven might involve favorite foods, beloved pets, and loving friends and relatives, but a sophisticated adult’s heaven will be more of a plunge into blissful Mystery. Whatever that might mean. Besides, that childish imagery probably is meant more to be a metaphor for what makes one happy than to be a literal image of heaven. So, who knows? Maybe, when a child dies, the child experiences heaven as the literalization of those metaphors if that’s what makes the kid happy. And when an adult dies, perhaps heaven is something much more incomprehensibly grandiose. Assuming heaven is subjective, and assuming that one somehow retains one’s subjectivity after death.
Zooming back a bit, I think part of the problem, for those who reject religion, is that they attack a straw-man idea of what religion is and what it purports to sell. This is partly the fault of silly biblical literalists who treat the Bible as if it were a history book instead of a jumbled, not-always-well-edited tome of metaphorical and symbolic wisdom meant to lift up, comfort, and challenge us. But in rejecting this straw-man vision of religion, these same people turn to even sillier things like crystals and astrology, and Chinese medicine and whatever crap they pull out of their own asses. And that shit is no better, no more sensible, and just as full of the same, self-indulgent mumbo-jumbo they thought they were rejecting. Better to just become an atheist or an agnostic.
You already know my opinion on what happens when we die, and I’m reconciled to that point of view even if it doesn’t mean an eternity of bliss with the Divine. Your own wish for a do-over life strikes me as suffused with regret and a kind of quiet desperation. And even if you did get a do-over, with all of your supposed wisdom intact, ported over from your previous life, there’s no guarantee that your primitive urges won’t stifle that wisdom at the first opportunity, forcing you back into the samsaric cycle.
To me, reincarnation is a hell. I wouldn’t want to relive my childhood—all the messiness, the stupid fights with other kids, the parents yelling “no!” and punishing me, the crying, the pissing, the shitting, the puking, the ignorance. Most Hindus and Buddhists would agree that remaining trapped on the wheel of samsara is a kind of hell, which is why both religions seek release or liberation as their goal: moksha in Hinduism and nirvana in Buddhism. You, however, seem to want to remain on your do-over wheel, constantly chasing after something that can never be yours. How many lives will it take before you realize that this way of living is a stupid waste of time?
I guess some people need to smack their heads bloody against the maze wall until they finally, dimly realize that the way out of the maze isn’t by using their head to break the walls down. Good luck as you figure this out.
Kev, that’s a lot of food for thought, and as always, I appreciate your insights and viewpoints on the afterlife. I’m probably more agnostic than I let on, but there is some comfort in fantasizing about an all-powerful God who can answer our prayers for a heavenly afterlife. Like you, I expect when it is over, it is over. The bliss in that is that we won’t be aware that we are no more. Still, on those sleepless nights when I reflect on all the decision points that have occurred during my lifetime, it is somehow comforting to consider what might have happened if I’d taken a different path. Yeah, I’d likely screw up again anyway, but an eternity of trying to get it right still seems more comforting than the blackness of nothingness.
Anyway, I spend a lot of time in the Maze (there are six bars there) and the beer is cold, so it’s all good.