Reincarnation

A couple of nights ago I finally got around to making a recipe shared by another blogger online a couple of weeks ago. It was a rice, vegetable and salmon dish, and I was really excited about making it. The only problem was, I must have done something wrong because my end result was a very bland-tasting entree. 

To add some zest and pizzaz to it, I brought out a concoction guaranteed to make any chicken or fish dish sit up and smile: 1/2 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup plain yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper. I mixed it into the salmon and rice and voilá. Instant deliciousness.

The fact that I know this trick is owed to nothing more than living 55 years on the planet and picking up a few tricks in the kitchen. I also know a few tricks for the garden and around the house, and some in dealing with people.

But here's the deal: What if the Buddhists are right and we reincarnate over and over? Do all those tricks I've learned over 55 years of trial and error (emphasis on error) vanish into the ether when I'm born again and I have to learn it all over again....over and over?

Oh, you say, but it's the spiritual lessons that count, really. All the other stuff is inconsequential. Well, that's easy to say until you taste a bland salmon and rice dish, or have to deal with an idiot contractor, police officer, boss or doctor, or can't figure out how to fix a busted irrigation line in your pasture.

I'll tell you what. Being able to turn a bland meal into a stunning one, use a life hack to restore a kitchen sink, or deal with demagogues and difficult people are not small and inconsequential skills. They're what makes life better all the way around and are therefore important.

I hope I don't have to come back and re-learn all this stuff. I used to think the concept of reincarnation had so much merit -- it seemed so egalitarian --  but now that I've amassed a sizable body of life hacks and knowledge, I'm wont to give up my Life Skills Toolbox and start over again.

Perhaps Heaven is the place where we show up with all our learned knowledge and find we're the same age we were when we made all the mistakes that taught us those things -- but we know everything we do now. 

Now that would be another lifetime worth living again. To arrive with one's mental toolbag intact, stuffed with all of the good knowledge and none of the neuroses that generally goes along with it all. 

Now that's a lifetime I'd love to live for sure. Groundhog Day, Version 2.0.