Merriam-Webster defines the philosophical term metempsychosis as “the passing of the soul at death into another body, either human or animal”.
Traditionally, the cycle of rebirth, or reincarnation, is a wheel one seeks to break free from. Within the vast scope of religion, rebirth is messy, uncomfortable, and dissatisfying – only pure, disengaged liberation may untether us from the stream of incarnation and suffering.
To be twenty-six years old, unworldly, and publicly disagreeing with thousands of years of beliefs spanning both geography and culture is audacious and naive, to say the least. Nonetheless, I find myself overambitious. I’m unsatisfied with one shot at rebirth. I don’t accept one final moment at the end of one brief lifespan as the ultimate opportunity to begin anew. Sure, positing the existence of the wheel implies one reset per lifetime over tens, hundreds, or thousands of lifetimes, but not for our current selves as we understand each other to be. These voices—the one writing to you and the one reading silently in your head—only get one finite chance, according to most of the widely accepted philosophies.
Now is the time to be audacious and overambitious. I refuse to deny that rebirth is all around us. I witness my own rebirth when I face a familiar, cyclical trauma and navigate it with newly grasped tools and wisdom. I witness the world’s rebirth when Mourning Doves return to their spot outside my home each year and sing their comforting calls. Humans carry the unique, cursed blessing that is our capacity to cultivate conscious awareness. We have the ability to perceive every moment as brand new and the agency to choose to be reborn from within. There will never be one singular, spectacular moment that sets you on the “correct” path for the rest of your time here. There will be unavoidable branches on the path that are messy, uncomfortable, and dissatisfying, but more than anything else, there will be turns that lead you to rebirth and beginning anew.