Musings on Possible Past Lives

(Author's note- I have a little over half a bottle of muscadine wine in me right now. The writing and/or editing may reflect that. Sorry.) (Sort of.) (Not really at all.)

I have recently begun reading the Temeraire books by Naomi Novik and I must say- they are fantastic. I mean just freaking awesome. I'd picked one up a few years back and thought the premise was interesting, but it blows my mind that I waited until now to actually read them. They are quite brilliant, and I feel that I am enjoying extra especially much because Nathan strong-armed me into becoming One Who Appreciates O'Brian, so I'm kind of hip to the nautical bidness. Kind of.

But that's not the point of this entry. The point of this entry is to reflect upon the fact that, for some reason, acts of unselfish, unconditional (and often unrequitted/undeserved) love in literature make me cry every single time. Seriously. It's like, I can't read a lot of children's pictures book while in the store 'cos I'll start bawling. And today that got me thinking on why that might be. The only explanation that I can come up with is that, sometime in a past life, I loved like that, and got screwed.

Which in turn got me thinking about my current love, and how it's reciprocal, and what a lovely thing that is. But it also got me thinking about how dangerous love is, with the way it makes you all exposed and vulnerable to someone ripping your entrails out, and you thanking them for the privilege.

Dangerous, dangerous stuff, love.

And all of that got me thinking about Buddhist philosophy, and how desire leads to suffering. And it's true- desire does lead to suffering- and sometimes I'll catch myself shying away from a thing because if I have it then I'll want more of it, and it will just hurt when I can't have it. And I think I'm not the only female of my acquaintance that does that, and it makes me wonder if it's a more feminine thing than a masculine thing, the whole self-denial business.

Anyway I'm glad I got it this time around, and having it was worth all the suffering I went through on the way. I'll even go so far as to say it will be worth all the suffering that will come in the future. Which I guess is why I make as lousy a Buddhist as I do a Christian.