The Second Time Around

Love is lovelier
The second time around
song

You only go around once in this life ... says the beer commercial. Say: do the ad men know existence better than the theologians? (They could hardly know it worse!)
But I think the ad men may be right. Imagine the ways in which life would be different had we lived before, assuming the universe, life, society, to be similar in time₂ as in time₁. Not that everyone would behave quite identically.
But I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t let them put me in school again for anything. Dragging my feet on the way to kindergarten? I should have dragged twice as hard for day two. I wouldn’t answer another draft notice: take my five years in jail and be done with it.
I wouldn’t get married again. For anything, whatever the girl’s charms, promises ...
Oh, I’d have a kid again. Kids, plural; but without benefit of marriage.
Live with a woman? Of course. One can’t do without women.

PS Just occurred to me: how many miscarriages, how many stillbirths, result from the fetus fuming and fretting: "No, no, not again. I refuse to live again."