And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands: and stretched himself upon the child; and the flesh of the child waxed warm.

-- 2 Kings 4:34, KJV

Over the last few weeks i’ve come to feel that this will be my last life. Perhaps it’s just that, having no idea what the world will be like in 25 years, i also can’t imagine a future life. None of my past lives turned out to be at all like i’d imagined, when i used to mentally toy with the idea of reincarnation; but at least it was possible to imagine such lives. However, the feeling is strong and persistent, and it makes sense of this life: i don’t think this Elberry incarnation is meant to be a proper life, so much as a tidying up of loose ends, an epilogue to five millenia of foolery and difficulty and crazy hair. It explains why i know of three lives (four, now, as another German one is emerging from the vaults), when most people don’t even suspect they’ve lived before, let alone remember their lives.
It shouldn’t make any difference but it does; i feel relieved of a long burden, to know (or suspect, hope) this will be my last physical life. i already felt somewhat distant from my own life, but i now feel something like i did when i knew i was about to leave one of my many shitty office jobs – a gleeful irresponsibility, knowing i can say or do just about anything and it won’t matter, because i won’t be here next week. In this case, i have at least two loose ends left to tidy up, from the last life – someone to meet, and something to write. Both are things to look forward to. But after that, adios motherfucker, bon voyage.

- Elberry

An elegant study, formulated by psychologists Ellen Langer and Alia Crum at Harvard University in 2007, examined the effect of simply being told that you are doing something healthy. Eighty-four female room attendants working in various hotels were divided into two groups: one was told that cleaning hotel rooms was "good exercise" and "satisfies the Surgeon General's recommendations for an active lifestyle", along with elaborate explanations of how and why; the other group did not receive this cheering information, and just carried on cleaning hotel rooms. Four weeks later, the 'informed' group perceived themselves to be getting significantly more exercise than before, and showed a significant decrease in weight, body fat, waist-to-hip ratio and body mass index. Amazingly, both groups were still reporting the same amount of activity.

I believe the reality is that pulling out a credit card and ordering a book or a course is easy. Actually consuming the material and doing the work is hard. When people discover there's actual work involved, they too often reach for the credit card again to move on to the next big thing.

- Bill Hibbler