Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Wherefor the Soul?
I'm going to take a mental break from the fact that U.S. forces are already in Iran, that I can listen to the 'news roundup' on 95% of the radio programs - the one's that even carry news - and hear three quotes from Mr. Bush that all have been carefully edited to make him appear both articulate and competent; or the fact that this immigration 'debate' is so slanted and filled with racism as to be a national disgrace. Nope, today I'm going to flee into the realm of philosophical abstraction and ponder the existence of the soul.
During my catholic upbringing, we were inculcated with the notion that the soul is the part of ourselves that God has created to make up the spiritual part of our existence. Prior to our parents' failure with the rhythm method, this invisible soul resided in a special place in Heaven called the 'Luft' (I think) until an angel came down and bestowed it upon us at the nanosecond of conception.
I began to bore of catholic mythology by about 4th grade, but even as I considered paganism and lycanthropy as alternatives, I never abandoned the notion that we have a soul. As a child I felt things very intensely; feelings came from the soul, seemed good enough for me. I loved reading as a kid. Books on mythology, the Dragonlance series, the Gor series, Mack Bolan 'the Executioner', the Survivalist series, the list goes on and on. The point is, I indulged an already over-active imagination.
By my junior high days I discovered philosophy. The long winded writing styles of these victims of intropection fascinated me. I love writing where the concepts being defined require whole chapters - before the concepts can be analysed or compared! I always felt that what was being discussed in these books, what Descartes referred to as 'the very best conversations with the wisest of men', was the soul. Greater levels of understanding were out there to be unlocked, and I wanted to grasp at that.
The fact that so many philosophers had been oppressed by the Church or some other instituion probably also lead me to identify with them as the 'good guys.' Ironic how christianity teaches some of us to honor the sacrifice of Jesus at the hands of an ignorant mob, then turns on a dime and does the same thing to so many intellectuals.
(Note to conservative bloggers: obviously, Aurelius has a fascination with oppressed writers. When you flame all over his comment section, you only feed his ego as he compares himself to another Rousseau. . .)
So, I obsessed on Renee Descartes, and did all sorts of 'thought experiments' into my early twenties regarding his Mind/Body definitions. I would refer to myself as a 'dualist' when others where 'luthern'. I had great '80s hair, with the left side of my head my natural curls hung down to the shoulder, while the right side was trimmed short - 'to express the duality of man' Yeah, scared off a few complimentary advances with that one-liner. I even came damn close to getting, 'Congito ergo sum' tatooed accross my chest, unfortuanately lettering was damn expensive.
It seemed to me that Descartes dualism made a whole lot of sense. What I defined when I thought about myself, that was the Mind. Obviously, I had a soul and it only made sense that this soul was immortal and could not be affected by the lowly world of the material, the Body. I still lumped all my imagination and sometimes overwhealming emotions into the realm of the Mind. I had a creation myth where primative creatures captured the soul, in a similar way that primordial ameobas absorbed smaller lifeforms and incorporated them into unique organelles. . .
I'll skip over my fascination with behaviorism, and the modern understanding of the brain that does not require a ghost at the controls of the machine. Suffice to say that I still hate the fuckers who made me think about that stuff. Some of my childish fantasy dies every time I ceed that such a model makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Where I'm interested in being at this point in the post deals with the notion of the soul as 'perfect.' How many consider the fact that the soul they were born with is the same soul that they will die with? Over the last few years I've become haunted with the notion that our souls do not just alter over time with the occassional tragedy or revelation. They are the treasured collection in our minds of every Idea, thought, and experience that helps to deliniate what is me from what is the outside world. The soul is still the lockbox in our heart where we keep those beliefs that we are willing to kill or die for. Isn't it?
Saw 'Silent Hill' last Friday. Aside from the fact that lame-ass critics will always dis a 'movie based on a video game,' and hold a grudge when they don't get a pre-screening; as we left that movie the scores of teenagers we were forced to endure the presence of during the flick all thought it sucked. At least the ones busy vocalizing (which seemed to be all of them, all at once) did not get it, did not understand the whole 'land of the living, land of the dead' thing.
It wasn't that complicated. There were a half-dozen myths that might have been referenced by the movie, and these kids not have been reading about Orpheus in school that week.
Certain spiritual communications - the effort by one soul to make an impression on another, overcoming the barriers of the flesh - requires the most sacred collections of thoughts/feelings to be bundled up in words and spoken accross the void to another. They then unpack this bundle of words, and hopefully those combinations reference the same emotions and understandings inside their inner world. Here is where liberals have an article of faith, we believe that every human being has some common stuff in their souls, that such moving communication be possible even accross boundries of race or culture.
I guess I'm stabbing at the notion that our souls need to be cultivated. We need to study art and science, mythology and pop T.V., cuz every single source can be the words and the references that another soul might use to bundle up part of what means something to them as they try to share it with you.
Final example: I'm a huge fan of the musical works of Rodger Waters. On his 'Radio KAOS' album, there is a song title 'Home' that just gets me in the belly every time I hear it. One reference, is '. . . could be a little someplace by a bend in the river, could be something your old man handed down . . . everybody's got someplace, they call home.' Only last week at the library did I see a list of the top 100 novels of the twentieth century and had a disappointing moment as I checked off the half-dozen I've read. 'A Bend in the River' is a book by somebody important, it was in the top fifty. I'd never read it, but Water's is referencing it in his song - I'd bet my sideburns. So if I had read that book, and placed some of its content into the vault of my soul, his song would have even more meaning for me as that line would be a key that would unlock even more meaning as I heard it.
My own understanding of the soul has grown and developed over time. I have now come to see the absorption of culture as a means of 'improving the high' I get when I have a chance to partake of spiritual communion. I don't claim to have it all figured out, this is just where I be right now.
Thanks for taking the time to suffer through some of my seeking.
During my catholic upbringing, we were inculcated with the notion that the soul is the part of ourselves that God has created to make up the spiritual part of our existence. Prior to our parents' failure with the rhythm method, this invisible soul resided in a special place in Heaven called the 'Luft' (I think) until an angel came down and bestowed it upon us at the nanosecond of conception.
I began to bore of catholic mythology by about 4th grade, but even as I considered paganism and lycanthropy as alternatives, I never abandoned the notion that we have a soul. As a child I felt things very intensely; feelings came from the soul, seemed good enough for me. I loved reading as a kid. Books on mythology, the Dragonlance series, the Gor series, Mack Bolan 'the Executioner', the Survivalist series, the list goes on and on. The point is, I indulged an already over-active imagination.
By my junior high days I discovered philosophy. The long winded writing styles of these victims of intropection fascinated me. I love writing where the concepts being defined require whole chapters - before the concepts can be analysed or compared! I always felt that what was being discussed in these books, what Descartes referred to as 'the very best conversations with the wisest of men', was the soul. Greater levels of understanding were out there to be unlocked, and I wanted to grasp at that.
The fact that so many philosophers had been oppressed by the Church or some other instituion probably also lead me to identify with them as the 'good guys.' Ironic how christianity teaches some of us to honor the sacrifice of Jesus at the hands of an ignorant mob, then turns on a dime and does the same thing to so many intellectuals.
(Note to conservative bloggers: obviously, Aurelius has a fascination with oppressed writers. When you flame all over his comment section, you only feed his ego as he compares himself to another Rousseau. . .)
So, I obsessed on Renee Descartes, and did all sorts of 'thought experiments' into my early twenties regarding his Mind/Body definitions. I would refer to myself as a 'dualist' when others where 'luthern'. I had great '80s hair, with the left side of my head my natural curls hung down to the shoulder, while the right side was trimmed short - 'to express the duality of man' Yeah, scared off a few complimentary advances with that one-liner. I even came damn close to getting, 'Congito ergo sum' tatooed accross my chest, unfortuanately lettering was damn expensive.
It seemed to me that Descartes dualism made a whole lot of sense. What I defined when I thought about myself, that was the Mind. Obviously, I had a soul and it only made sense that this soul was immortal and could not be affected by the lowly world of the material, the Body. I still lumped all my imagination and sometimes overwhealming emotions into the realm of the Mind. I had a creation myth where primative creatures captured the soul, in a similar way that primordial ameobas absorbed smaller lifeforms and incorporated them into unique organelles. . .
I'll skip over my fascination with behaviorism, and the modern understanding of the brain that does not require a ghost at the controls of the machine. Suffice to say that I still hate the fuckers who made me think about that stuff. Some of my childish fantasy dies every time I ceed that such a model makes a hell of a lot of sense.
Where I'm interested in being at this point in the post deals with the notion of the soul as 'perfect.' How many consider the fact that the soul they were born with is the same soul that they will die with? Over the last few years I've become haunted with the notion that our souls do not just alter over time with the occassional tragedy or revelation. They are the treasured collection in our minds of every Idea, thought, and experience that helps to deliniate what is me from what is the outside world. The soul is still the lockbox in our heart where we keep those beliefs that we are willing to kill or die for. Isn't it?
Saw 'Silent Hill' last Friday. Aside from the fact that lame-ass critics will always dis a 'movie based on a video game,' and hold a grudge when they don't get a pre-screening; as we left that movie the scores of teenagers we were forced to endure the presence of during the flick all thought it sucked. At least the ones busy vocalizing (which seemed to be all of them, all at once) did not get it, did not understand the whole 'land of the living, land of the dead' thing.
It wasn't that complicated. There were a half-dozen myths that might have been referenced by the movie, and these kids not have been reading about Orpheus in school that week.
Certain spiritual communications - the effort by one soul to make an impression on another, overcoming the barriers of the flesh - requires the most sacred collections of thoughts/feelings to be bundled up in words and spoken accross the void to another. They then unpack this bundle of words, and hopefully those combinations reference the same emotions and understandings inside their inner world. Here is where liberals have an article of faith, we believe that every human being has some common stuff in their souls, that such moving communication be possible even accross boundries of race or culture.
I guess I'm stabbing at the notion that our souls need to be cultivated. We need to study art and science, mythology and pop T.V., cuz every single source can be the words and the references that another soul might use to bundle up part of what means something to them as they try to share it with you.
Final example: I'm a huge fan of the musical works of Rodger Waters. On his 'Radio KAOS' album, there is a song title 'Home' that just gets me in the belly every time I hear it. One reference, is '. . . could be a little someplace by a bend in the river, could be something your old man handed down . . . everybody's got someplace, they call home.' Only last week at the library did I see a list of the top 100 novels of the twentieth century and had a disappointing moment as I checked off the half-dozen I've read. 'A Bend in the River' is a book by somebody important, it was in the top fifty. I'd never read it, but Water's is referencing it in his song - I'd bet my sideburns. So if I had read that book, and placed some of its content into the vault of my soul, his song would have even more meaning for me as that line would be a key that would unlock even more meaning as I heard it.
My own understanding of the soul has grown and developed over time. I have now come to see the absorption of culture as a means of 'improving the high' I get when I have a chance to partake of spiritual communion. I don't claim to have it all figured out, this is just where I be right now.
Thanks for taking the time to suffer through some of my seeking.
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if my soul needs cultivating..there is one thing it doesn't need after reading this post..fertilizer...
veeeeeeeery interesting....
veeeeeeeery interesting....
"I began to bore of catholic mythology by about 4th grade"
My compliments on your precocity, sir!
It took me until high school to develop the intellectual cojones it took to make the big leap and say, "I don't buy this stuff anymore."
My compliments on your precocity, sir!
It took me until high school to develop the intellectual cojones it took to make the big leap and say, "I don't buy this stuff anymore."
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