SL: a reincarnation metaphor

I've been switching between alts a lot lately, chatting with friends as Opal and building a business as my professional alt. And I've even been logging in as my testing alt when I need uninterrupted time. When I meet people through my professional alt, I usually explain that it is an alt and that I've been in SL longer than what my profile says. That helps explain why I know a bit more about SL.

And it occurred to me that SL is a lot like reincarnation.

There is a theory that each life we live contributes something to a higher life. That all the experiences we have somehow pours back into a whole, an oversoul, a repository of sorts. They say that we are born with certain talents or inclinations, which we learned from a "previous" lifetime, to help us in the current lifetime. I've also read a theory that, because time is just another dimension, those "previous" lifetimes might be concurrent with this one, or even in the future.

I guess in a sense, SL is something akin to that. I've learned a lot in my life as Opal and I continue to learn. But the knowledge, the skills, and the wisdom do not reside in Opal; those things reside in the real person behind the avatar. And my professional alt benefits from what I learned as Opal. It's almost like the real person is the oversoul, while each avatar is a lifetime.

I'm still pondering the metaphor....