The Case for Old Souls
I’ve existed for over 12,000 years. I am not alive, never was, never will be. I work in The Factory that creates souls for human beings. I can’t imagine having any other job, nor would I want one. You see, there’s something magical in every moment. Whether it’s processing a soul for reconditioning or assisting with the creation of a new soul, I’m always in awe.
In the beginning, when we first opened The Factory, human beings had just come into existence. We had a lean crew back then, and even though those initial weeks were spent in new soul creation, we quickly moved into reconditioning. Life for humans was extremely dangerous back then, and their lives were short. Sometimes we’d see a new soul back for reconditioning or recondition the same soul multiple times in a single year.
I’m guessing it was probably around the time we were handling about one million souls that we started to realize what was happening. Before then, when I looked at a fresh human from a reconditioned soul and one from a new soul, I couldn’t tell the difference. Sure, humans were primitive then, but I was starting to see that some of the reconditioned souls showed innate sparks of improved intelligence.
At first, I assumed it was because of the coding. We liked to experiment in those early centuries, and it wasn’t out of the ordinary for some humans to be quite different from others. But that wasn’t it. What we were seeing was an accumulation of wisdom, or maybe experience — albeit in a non-physical sense.
I took it upon myself to study particular old souls and follow them through their multiple reconditionings. You see, those souls that had been reconditioned multiple times were superior to the new souls. Yet superior in such intangible ways. Although new humans with reconditioned souls never remember previous lives, they draw from patterns of existence from centuries of life. These old souls are full of thought, curious, quick to learn, and deeply empathetic. I’ve seen them sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others, selfless acts that go against self-preservation or genetic proliferation.
I wrote a report once, proposing that this accumulated wisdom be rectified, but the Director just told me, “Let it be.”
Early on, it took about 5,000 years for the human population to multiply itself by 10. You always knew what kind of a day it would be if there were famine, extreme weather events, or war. Almost everyone worked on reconditioning those days.
But eventually, prosperity increased, and the next 5,000 years showed that the humans had again increased their population tenfold. We expanded “The Factory” to accommodate the demand for new souls.
Humans slowly found ways to prolong their lives and adapt their environment to meet their needs. It only took 2,000 years to increase the population another tenfold. After that, their population surged threefold in only 100 years.
Today the reconditioning department is only a tiny portion of “The Factory.” Our production department is creating new souls at an unprecedented rate to keep up with human beings’ physical procreation.
Looking at the state of the human world right now makes me want to go back to my old soul theory. This is the first time in human history when there are more new souls than old souls, by billions.
I am terrified. It isn’t the population that concerns me. It is the lack of accumulated intellect. The haphazard utilization of the world’s resources, the lack of empathy of fellow human beings, the trajectory of selfishness — all continue unabated at terminal velocity.
I wrote a short memo to the Director about this the other day, to which he replied, “I think maybe you are on to something.”
