With more intelligence, I have now chosen the shortest term life forms I have experienced, a form of virus that lives only a few hours, as an interim step to any other. I'm sure that I've seemed to almost wink out of existence only to be replaced by a totally different being. Actually, it takes a minute or so. (Now that I have access to timepieces I know that).
That change has been enough to send the fear of the gods into an attacking predator when a meal disappears into a hole and a larger predator reappears a moment later.
As I said, it hasn't always been this way. At one time, I changed slowly from one creature to another and spent days trying to live my dual lifestyle. Since almost every being has some kind of predator, some of these slow changes had very bad results. I quickly learned what things I could change to without making myself so vulnerable that I was killed. It also made me very secretive during these times of vulnerability.
Perhaps I'm even the stuff of mythology. I'm sure that someone seeing a bird changing to a lion would think of the griffin.
I also had to carefully watch the change from a water life form to a land form. I remember the consequences of trying to change directly from fish to deer once. I died miserably, drowning in two environments.
It encouraged going slowly from one element to another and staying in that element for as long as possible before changing back to the other. Therefore, I swam in the oceans for many many years after translating from animal to amphibian to fish. And stayed land-based for a long time before transmuting back into the water again.
Of course, I told you that I can return quickly and easily to any form I have enjoyed before. It was never as if I was unremittingly tied to the water or to the land. There does seem to be some limit on how long I can remain in this state.
After a relatively short time, I seem to tire very quickly and become weaker and weaker. In nature, weak is never a good condition. And, if I'm killed in one of these short-term incarnations, I die in my current life and revert. Just the simple dislocation of this makes it unpleasant without the dying, which makes it unbearable.
Needless to say, I avoid overstaying in a short-term form.
I told you about transforming from a meek rabbit being chased by a coyote to a bear chasing a coyote. Well, that's what I'd been thinking about anyway when I talked about a predator chasing prey into a hole and a bigger predator coming back out.
You can see the uses for the short-term incarnations, can't you? Well, it's made me almost impossible to kill. One second, I'm a cowering rabbit and the next second a grasshopper moving out of harm's way. One second, I'm a deer running from the forest fire and then a hawk flying quickly away. One second, I'm a silvery tuna and the next a very directed whale.
Bottom line, I haven't died of anything but out-of-the-blue accidents in centuries.
A very long time ago, I tried being a man for the first time. I spent a relatively short time doing that. I hated my fellows' fear and craven attempts at survival in a body ill-made to do that. I was too frequently cold or hot and always, it seemed, hungry. It wasn't one of my favorite incarnations and took a very long time to retry.
Of course, I recognized the spark of intelligence that has set man above most of the other animals of the world now. But I found that type of intelligence of little value in any other life form.
But man grew in his use of intelligence and, after an extended period in the oceans, I returned for an extended period on land and found mankind in dirty cities. The cities totally disgusted me but intelligence intrigued me. Though ill-directed in most cases, it seemed to be more seeking and expanding than even the much better directed and greater intelligence of the whale.
As a man, I became a great shaman to my village. I could frighten when I wished. I could save lives in many ways with my knowledge and my abilities. Any under my protection, could not be harmed. I would not allow it. And for their part, they worshiped me for it. It was a long and happy life.
I ended that time in the way of the shaman, turning myself into an eagle and flying away before choosing another incarnation.
With human intelligence and experience to draw on, I found life in many of the other forms vastly easier. Thinking ahead to consequences was the primary benefit. Recognizing dangers and pleasures was another.
Some animal incarnations were vastly boring to me now. The simple and continuous pursuit of food was numbing. But after a difficult experience, surely I craved this mindless pursuit of the simplest basics. And even this lifestyle was made easier by knowledge and anticipation.
The next time I had the urge to be human, I found that the conglomerate of human thinking had produced much of interest. Art, music, plays, great works. It was interesting to explore and to share the knowledge of these thinkers. But, at the same time, men had created the worst of its institutions. War was sought and fought with mindless fury.
Even my time as a shaman for a primitive village had not prepared me for this.
And if war were not enough, man had also created slavery, shifting his work to the shoulders of those he could control. These twin barbarities, drove me back to the oceans for many lives. On the way back to the ocean, I took a diverting side trip to an island where I translated from man to bull over a normal period. It proved to be a diversion when several men saw me in translation and could not understand my rage at their interference in my life.
As an animal, I follow the nature of animals. All those of us alive on this planet do the same whether we know we are doing it or not.
Though I sometimes spent a life as some type of herbivore, enjoying the speed and freedom and restfulness of that lifestyle, more often I was a predator. I flew as a raptor. I ran on soft, silent, and powerful paws. When I sought society, it was often to hunt with a group. I had no compunction about killing and still do not. That's the way of nature.
My human experiences only gave it a different direction than most of nature. Nature's killing is usually for food. Occasionally it is for the pure joy of the hunt and the kill itself. Being a man gave me another reason. To destroy the designs of evil.
Evil. An interesting concept. In nature, there is no evil. Evil is a concept that can only be applied to man as a description of man. Evil comes from man's ability to anticipate and therefore determine how to perform it on another man or on nature. How to enslave. How to wage war. How to steal what belongs to another.
With a special perspective and the objectivity of never truly belonging, I could identify evil easily. My determinations could never be tainted by patriotism or religious belief or home and family. If I had not, by personal nature, been a killer, I would have made the perfect judge for I could always perceive the evil by the smell and foul taste of it.
And I was always willing to use any necessary means to ferret out evil if it wasn't self- evident.
Was I effective? Perhaps sometimes. Identified, nothing could stop me from killing with sword or dagger or tooth and claw. If the evil was too large for me alone, I could lead and guide and motivate. Perhaps I supplied the heart to great warrior kings but I was never king.
Like nature, I preferred to kill simply, efficiently, with as little danger to myself as possible, and quickly. Stealth served the end much more frequently than any other form of death dealing. Yes, I did kill on occasion to provide a greater example for those who were only thinking about taking up the banners of evil. I could kill publicly in a way designed to get the greatest notice and, I hoped, have the most effect.
With all I did in numerous lives as human and animal, I am only one. I believe I had an effect where I acted, but I could only act in the spot where I was at the moment.