"The Egg" is a short story published by American writer
Andy Weir
Andrew Taylor Weir (born June 16, 1972) is an American novelist and former computer programmer. His 2011 novel '' The Martian'' was adapted into the 2015 film of the same name directed by Ridley Scott. He received the John W. Campbell Award for ...
, originally published on his website Galactanet on August 15, 2009. It is Weir's most popular short story, and has been translated into over 30 languages by readers.
The story follows a nameless 48-year-old man who discovers the "meaning of life" after he dies.
Summary
The story is about the main character, who is referred to as "you" (in the second person), and God, who is "me" (in the first person). You, a 48-year-old man who dies in a car crash, meets God, the narrator, who says that you have been reincarnated many times before, and that you are next to be reincarnated as a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD. God then explains that you are, in fact, constantly reincarnated across time, and that all human beings who have ever lived and will ever live are incarnations of you. You remark about being
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
,
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
, and
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
. God adds that you were also once
John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was an American stage actor who assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the prominent 19th-century Booth th ...
, every
Holocaust victim and every
person who followed Jesus.
God explains that in fact there are other godlike beings elsewhere, and that you too will one day become a god. The entire universe was created as an egg for the main character (all of humanity), and once you have lived every human life ever, you will be born as a god. The reason God created the universe was for the main character, you, to understand this point: "Every time you victimized someone...you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you."
History
In a 2015 interview with the Craftsman Founder Podcast, Weir discussed his motivation for writing The Egg, among other topics. In the interview, Weir stated that he "wanted to write a story where life was fair after all". According to Weir, most religions have their own take on the proverb "what goes around comes around" and revolve around this idea in some way. When asked why he chose to have one soul reincarnating constantly across time instead of linearly forward though time, Weir said that the only way his idea of everyone being one soul would work was if reincarnation could happen across time. Weir stated that he wrote the story quickly, saying "I banged it out in 40 minutes and posted it, and that was it." He did not expect the traction that the story got after it was published.
In popular culture
The rapper
Logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
used "The Egg" as inspiration for his album
''Everybody'' released in 2017, re-imagined in the interlude track "Waiting Room" and featuring
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson ( or ; born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia University. From 1991 to 1994, he was a po ...
as God.
See also
*
Open individualism Open individualism is the view in the philosophy of self, according to which there exists only one numerically identical subject, who is everyone at all times, in the past, present and future. It is a theoretical solution to the question of persona ...
*
Advaita Vedanta
''Advaita Vedanta'' (; sa, अद्वैत वेदान्त, ) is a Hinduism, Hindu sādhanā, a path of spiritual discipline and experience, and the oldest extant tradition of the Āstika and nāstika, orthodox Hindu school Ved ...
*
Hiranyagarbha
Hiraṇyagarbha (Sanskrit: हिरण्यगर्भः ; literally the 'golden womb', poetically translated as 'universal womb') is the source of the creation of universe or the manifested cosmos in Vedic philosophy. It finds mention in on ...
*
Panpsychism
In the philosophy of mind, panpsychism () is the view that the mind or a mindlike aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality. It is also described as a theory that "the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists thro ...
*
Cosmic egg
The world egg, cosmic egg or mundane egg is a mythological motif found in the cosmogonies of many cultures that is present in Proto-Indo-European culture and other cultures and civilizations. Typically, the world egg is a beginning of some sort ...
References
External links
The Egg(full text)
Fiction about God
2009 short stories
Philosophical fiction
American short stories
Short stories adapted into films
{{2000s-fantasy-story-stub
Works adapted into animated films
Works by Andy Weir