[ WP ] In the realm where souls reside before we 're born , everything is pretty great . There 's no poverty , no one wants for anything , everyone knows their role and purpose . It is , essentially , perfect . But that perfection is accomplished via draconian law : the only punishment is the `` birth penalty ''

I never understood why so many kicked and screamed... 
 Being born was n't so bad after the sixth time. The first five were progressively less horrifying and painful once you got used to it. Humanity has always had its ups and downs... 
 
 Most of the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments is out of the way within a few years, and then you get eighty years or so to be beautifully and imperfectly human. 
 
 Angelic perfection is so damned *blasé*... 
 
 The big problem, and the one that nobody wants to recognize, is that the birth penalty was n't always the law... The first time down was so we could make mistakes and express ourselves, to have bodies that could experience more than just bliss and light. The human realm was still subject to the same demand of perfection as heaven, though, and way back when on our first pass through, we were so intoxicated with the idea of free will that we invented violence. 
 
 When that poor girl Eve was nailed to the tree in the middle of the Garden... Damn. 
 
 There was no atoning from what they did to her. 
 
 So here we are, generation after generation of souls chained to cyclical Earthly existence to correct the sins of our previous descents. 
 
 Problem is, every time we come back we spend so much time growing up that we've forgotten that we're here to love each other and fix the world, make it perfect so the `` birth penalty'' no longer applies... but by the time we're adults, we've been indoctrinated by the deep systemic greed, hatred, and confusion that has amassed here that we get lost... For most people it's not until their last seconds on Earth that they remember what they were here for, and it's too late to do anything about it. 
 
 Guess we'll be here for a while. It's not so bad, I suppose. 
 Come find me under the tree if you get tired.
