Not Settling for a Puppy or a Kitty

Weekend Assignment #162: Reincarnation is a fact and you are going to come back as some type of animal. What kind would you prefer and why?

Extra Credit: Do you think you have good Karma or bad? Do you believe in Karma?

Let's start by defining the premise a bit further. To my way of thinking, any world in which reincarnation of humans into animals is a "fact" is clearly not the one in which I sit tonight, typing these words. So. Let's make this theoretical world of reincarnation an interesting one, with animals worth being reincarnated into. No cat or dog is gonna cut it, or even the tiger of my childhood thought experiment. The whole point of a person is what goes on in the mind and soul, and our household pets simply haven't the capacity. No. If you are going to cram the salient parts of Karen into the brain of another species, I'm holding out for one that's big enough and complex enough to let me be me - more or less. That pretty much requires a species that doesn't exist on this version of this planet. Yeah. if I can't be human, I'd just as soon be a tengrem.

A tengrem. Art by Sherlock.

Of course, in a way I've already been a tengrem. I've spent a good bit of time inside the heads of Rani Fost and other tengremen, exploring what it's like to be rational part of the time, and operating on instinct at other times. Really, it's about the most fun part of writing these books.


If you disallow a tengrem for reincarnation, then I'll settle for a dragon, preferably a benign one, like a luck dragon or a gold dragon or one of Sara's dragons or a McCaffrey dragon. And if you disallow even that, and limit me to the species of this world, then I've got to go with a dolphin - preferably an Adamsian one.

As for karma, I believe that actions have consequences. I have a karma bill building up from my bad habits - too much bad food, not enough exercise, not enough sleep. But in other ways I suppose I do all right.

Anyway, it's late, and I should have been in bed hours ago. For tonight, so long, and thanks....