People who describe someone as an ‘Old Soul’ ( or worse, describe themselves as one) annoy me. I’ve noticed lately this is used for exceptionally gifted young musicians. It bothers me because instead of crediting the person as being very hard working, talented, and surrounded by supportive family, they are basically seen as a reincarnation of someone else who spent a lifetime developing their skills. They are treated with reverence, but over things they had no control over.
It seems like it is really hard for some people to accept that some humans are exceptionally precocious, intelligent and/or driven. I see it in other things too- aliens building our pyramids, moon landing hoaxes, etc. To me, it’s MORE impressive people accomplished these things. Some people learn and remember incredibly fast. Some people figured out how to build huge pyramids thousands of years ago. Nearly a half century ago many very smart people sent a few astronauts to the moon. Isn’t that amazing in itself? Not according to some people apparently.
I’m sure there’s a pattern to all these beliefs. Maybe if you feel you’ve ‘peaked’ in life, anyone else who did it sooner, better, faster or easier must have had some mysterious advantage. Perhaps they just can’t imagine how brilliant some people can be, and their existence would make Joe schmo feel inferior in comparison?
I understand the label “old soul” as describing someone who has the kind of perspective, often characterized by wisdom and world-weariness, that usually only comes with a lot of life experience. It doesn’t have anything to do with skill level.
Much like Neil Young was an old soul at 24. He caught onto life at a very young age and was able to express his feeling thru music. But, yeah, the phrase is often over used.
I’ve never heard old soul applied to reincarnation concepts. Like Thudlow, it’s always been about practical wisdom, maturity and the like.
When it was applied to me, it’s just that I never acted my age. In second grade, I was asking myself the kind of philosophical questions that some people don’t get around to until high school. (“If life is like running a marathon, then I need to know what the right course is if I’m going to end up at the finish line.” kind of thoughts). And when all the teenagers around me were screaming and being silly, I was bored and wishing I could go home and read. At holiday parties, I hung out with the adults if they’d let me. My wife is quite a bit older than me partly because I have never felt like I had anything in common with people my own age.
So when people have called me an old soul, that’s what they mean.
But on the general sentiment of down-playing someone’s real ability and the work they probably put into acquiring it… yes, I agree that this viewpoint is very frustrating to me. We can see some genetic changes in humans over the last 20,000 years or so, but for the most part, a cave man has all the raw intelligence that modern humans do. He may lack proper nutrition and certainly lacked our education and the support of our social structure, but still… when you look at what ancient humans accomplished, you should inevitably be drawn to the conclusion that some remarkably brilliant people were shouting Eureka! even before they had a word to shout it with.
I think this kind of thing is a way of justifying your current beliefs. That is: if you believe in aliens, then you project aliens back into history and look for evidence. Aha! Pyramids prove your current belief in aliens. If you believe in reincarnation, you look out into the world for evidence of it. In both cases, you’re probably looking at the extraordinary outliers as evidence of your beliefs. After all, everyone who believes in past lives was once someone famous and powerful… very few people say “In my past life, I was Henri the night-soil collector who beat his wife and got drunk a lot.”
I always thought reincarnation was at least one of the metaphorical referents. What better way for a soul to mature and grow wise, than to live new lives?
Yeah, I would agree that the conceit of old souls implies reincarnation even if people using it nowadays don’t literally believe the person has past lives. I also wouldn’t use it to refer to child prodigies, either. An old soul is a young person who has the attentiveness, care and maturity associated with older people.
This may be the all time most bizarre pitting I’ve ever seen (even though it’s not in the Pit). Old soul to me simply means “wise beyond their years”. How is that remotely offensive? Don’t get it.
Or if someone is in high spirits they must have been possessed by a drug addled ghost.
And when you call someone over the hill, they damn well better have gotten there by going up an incline.
On the other hand, I’ve never heard it applied to anything* else.* Before this thread, at least.
The fact that I’ve seldom heard it used outside of urban fantasy novels may have just a little bit to do with that, though. I wasn’t aware people used it in real life, in non-reincarnation related conversation.
I was going to say this basically. I’ve was nicknamed “Gramps” from 17 to like 30 because I tended to think things through rather than just act. “Old soul” always struck me as the same sort of thing.
The ‘annoying you’ part is understandable, it is something that can upsets one’s view of how things should ‘be’. But it goes deeper, as it usually diminishes the viewpoint of the annoyed person especially when the annoyed person feels like they are not able to have their view considered on equal footing or of equal interest and thus feel their view point diminished and excluded in a situation where the OP believes the other viewpoints should be the one diminished. It is turning the tables, and can flip the OP’s world upsidedown - and to many people that would lead to being upset and annoyed.
But to that I do find other person’s views to be wonderful and instructive and try to be open to them. In your case the 2 believes are compatible and form a greater picture. Old souls will get physical bodies capable of such feats so there is a physical and spiritual reason. For older souls I would put forth that they have learned how to develop ‘better’ (mind over matter stuff) and perhaps choose their parents for who they are to become. It also leaves open the possibility of replicating this using medical science, resulting in perhaps more gifted younger souls.
As for the aliens helping us create great structures. Just because we got alien help does not equal that we were not capable ourselves, which is what the OP is missing. Now if the argument was put forth that we were incapable of building these things without help then they could advance his argument, but I haven’t seen many people trying to advance that argument. I have heard that we wouldn’t have done those things without at least alien contact (mainly because we would not have been so motivated), but again ‘wouldn’t’ =/= ‘couldn’t’. So it does not IMHO diminish the capability of the early peoples.