You are every person you will ever meet.

And until you acknowledge that you have the capacity not just for kindness and compassion, but also for heartlessness and cruelty… until you acknowledge that, you will never be able to start from here

Count me in.

Nice playing patty cakes with you over the internet.

I had a similar revelation the other day and I completely agree with you. But what if at an even deeper level, we literally are, have been and will continue to be everybody else for infinite. Let me further explain. What if everything that has happened and everything that will happen is all part of an infinite hologram where nothing of free will really exists. What if I am living this life because I chose it without remembering why. But what if that reason is just because I want to experience what I am experiencing now. What if everybody around me I "recognize" I only recognize them because at some point in time and space I was that same person and I experienced the exact same thing and they experienced "me" but they didn't see me as the same as "them". So confusing I know. But still, I agree

Hello

Because Me, Myself, and I always 'discuss' every event and thought to an almost extreme is that good or bad no matter what those other 2 say ??? Inquiring minds want to know.

Is scenario thought our experienced? If it's experienced (emotions evolved) then there's no reason for you to experience it a second time, if you get what I'm sayin

I don't understand. I don't have the same heartlessness and cruelty as others.

op nailed it

The Egg, by Andy Weir:
[link to www.galactanet.com]

i really recommend this. it's a very short read, but well worth it.

Good stuff.

I like that and it jives with what I've always suspected, but what's the deal with the population expanding exponentially instead of remaining stable?

It seems like instead of a learning game it becomes an infinite prison.

No we carry the same Creator within.

Well said OP and from my perspective, it is true. When we hurt others, we hurt ourselves.

as a collective consciousness, we haven't experienced every possible permutation yet?

Possibly, but sometimes it seems like things are replicating endlessly. There are a lot of people with the same names now, similar lives, that look alike, act alike, etc. Doppelgangers seem to be becoming more common.

The world is getting generic with globalization and technology. When you add in overpopulation, it makes the idea of reincarnation seem outdated. I've read somewhere that there are now more people on the earth than ever lived before added together.

It seems like maybe the program is running haywire or something and the same thing could have been accomplished in a smaller world with more variety and been wrapped up a while back if it was just about lessons and experiencing every single possible emotion and life choice or experience.

How many times do you have to be a soldier with a sweetheart who dies on a battlefield? As every soldier in every war ever fought since the beginning of time?
Would my life be that much different if I incarnate as Brad Pitt and then George Clooney?

I like the idea and think there is probably a lot of truth in it, but the theory makes more sense to me confined more to family lines. I could see being everyone in your own family once.

Lines from Being Erica Season 4, episode 1. Scene with Dr. Tom and Erica. Starts around 36:50.

I agree. Just think that everyone one you see is you but just another version of you.

Hopefully your husband or wife is the nice version of you

What kind of utterly infantile solipsism is this??

Grow the hell up

I want to add that the psychotically selfish attitude of OP is what will always result when a child is left to raise itself, and is never disciplined by its parents for not coming to terms that there exits a reality beyond the childs selfish daydreams.

I'm not attacking you OP, you're probably a nice person. I just disagree with the statement, "You are every person you will ever meet." Yes, my worldview is shaped by personal experience just like everyone else, but you could subject 2 people to the exact same experiences/environment and end up with Mother Teresa and Charles Manson. How experiences are processed and rationalized is what makes us different. So, no we are not the same.

"We carry with us the same capacity for good and evil"
This statement contradicts "we are all the same"
because the choice between good and evil is always your decision. Merely having the capacity or potential does not make us alike.

I read this about 20 years ago and it stuck with me.
Steve Vai said this (paraphrased) I'm guessing it's rooted in buddhist philosophy...

"How you perceive yourself is what you will ultimately become."

That's probably the most important and enlightening statement I've ever read.

I agree.

However, once in a while apparently I'm needing an ass whooping. Just sayin.

Thank you for sharing this simple truth.

I think it's the same as the notion/saying of "putting yourself in the other person's shoes" before you speak or act, because we all would like to be treated with the same respect as we (hopefully) treat others.

To reinforce your point, I also realise that we are all born with the same human traits (want, hope, fear, love, compassion, etc).

Sure, there are some people out there who go over the line by hurting animals and other people alike for kicks, and those people are simply reacting to their own insecurities and mental illnesses in ways that are incomprehensible to us.

We are all the same, just with different ways of dealing with our wants and fears. Skin colour, creed and physical ability may "appear" to separate us, but in reality we are not separate.

As long as we convince ourselves that we are, we'll never get off this planet, explore space as a united species or survive the next 150 years.

It's as simple as that, really.

YOUR reality is that you live on a planet with limited water, air, dry land, shelter, and food.

YOU live amongst the richest 1 percent of the planet and therefore have no idea of the true nature of war. The real reasons behind bloodshed. You cower behind the strong who take and give to you. So that you may live in relative comfort with basic sanitation and food supplies while burning more electricity in a day than most have available in a year.

Those fights and battles to which you hold your noses high in the air to cluck your petty greviences is the very thing that keeps you at the top of the chain... on the backs of virtual slaves.

Revel in your position of power in comparison to most others in existance on this planet, or give away not just your posessions, but your place. Feel free to trade one for one with another living in abject poverty in the jungles of Africa. None of you would last a day.

Pathetic fools.

Hey OP, Must be truth always because without it, free will doesn't exist.. I personally know of NOBODY who likes being on the receiving end of evil, and only a couple I know just may be sadistic enough.. I'm praying to God I'm wrong though. Free will.. right?

Well we may be all apart of source energy, I'm far from anyone I've ever met.