What is the Soul?

Other people's souls are not in them. They are in you.

Cut open anyone you like. You will not find the soul. But this doesn't mean it's not there.

That's because the soul of another person is not in them, but in you.

Souls are beliefs.

Saying someone has a soul is like saying, "yes, he's like me on the inside." This is why, when we imagine trees or animals (like cute piglets) having souls, we immediately feel sympathy for them, because we believe that they perceive as we perceive. They feel as we feel. 

This is also why it's comforting to think that people who commit terrible crimes are soulless. By believing they do not have souls, we can say, "no, he's not like me on the inside," and, conversely, "I'm not like him on the inside."

Giving a soul is an act of creation.

When we are willing to say, "yes, he's like me on the inside," we actually create a living, sentient human being out of what would otherwise be an automaton. 

We are all gods with the uncanny ability to create and destroy people at will.

Hatred is an act of spiritual destruction.

In hating someone, a person says, "no, you are not like me."

And, in hating, that person destroys his neighbor.

In hating, a person becomes alone.

Related: Trying to Explain What I Think

Trying to Explain How I Think

Point 1: I believe the universe is just a bunch of stuff, and, to quote Fight Club, "we are all part of the same compost heap." I think our minds are no exception. Merely physical processes driven by molecules and things.

Point 1b: This is what pretentious philosophers call a "reductionist" view. As in, everything can be "reduced" to a material process. There's no proof for this view...it's just a way of looking at things. (We have just as much proof for saying that every physical process can be reduced to a spiritual process. At the end of the day, we have no idea what the words "physical" and "spiritual" mean except that they are in opposition to one another.)

Point 1*: I believe the universe is all just one thing, and that that one thing operates according to laws that are outside of our control.

Point 2. Because everything is physical, everything operates according to the laws of physics.

Point 2*: Because everything is the same thing, everything behaves according to the same laws.

Point 3: Because of the laws of physics, there is a certain inevitability to everything that happens. This is what pretentious philosophers call "determinism."

Point 3*: Because the laws are constant, the behavior of the universe is determined.

Point 3b: In other words, everything that happens is a single frame in one endless roll of film, and our lives are like tiny scenes in a movie. There is only one roll of film...

Point 3c: Again, there is no proof for this. Maybe there are three rolls of film. Nobody knows.

Point 4: Because everything is determined, our thoughts and "reasons" for things are also determined.

Point 5: This means that, no matter how you explain something, there is a chemical process causing you to explain it that way.

Point 6: To me, this means that the reasons people give for many of their thoughts, beliefs and desires may not in fact be the causes of those thoughts, beliefs and desires.

Point 6b: They might in fact just be a facade.

Point 7: My conclusion is that, because our conscious mind is determined by unconscious processes, we can't really know why we think, desire, or believe anything at all.

Point 7b: In other words, all reasons could very possibly be illusions.

Where does this leave us, practically speaking?

Really in a sort of gaping black hole of not having any way to explain anything.

Which isn't very impressive from a philosophical standpoint.

If anything, I merely believe that the emperor has no clothes.

Everyone on this bus is my child

Photo By Subharnab Majumdar - Flickr: Gazing beyond the camera, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30128047

I'm looking across the aisle to a young blond woman. She wears headphones, an olive green raincoat and tan suede pants with zippers on the ankles. Her shoulder length hair looks like it was cut about a month ago, and it curves forward in a golden arc as it falls to just about her shoulders. She looks tired.

In this moment she is my daughter.

I see her scared and afraid, wandering like a child. She is confused but reconstructing... Constantly creating a new story to replace the ones her parents told her as she fell asleep in those early nights. She is all of us... Searching... Waiting... Doing as she thinks she should. Trained. Molded. Shaped by a culture she did not choose.

Or maybe it's just me. As I look around the bus I see people of all biological ages. There is even three month old baby pouched on its mother's chest beside me to my left. There are people in their sixties with liver spots on their heads. But all I see is children.

All I see is children because I know that deep inside there is no switch to adulthood. Adulthood is a game we are all roped into playing one way or another, lest we be sent to a severe timeout... Thrown to the dogs. But I wonder as I look out at all these tired children's eyes... What depth of spirit had to sacrifice itself so that the "adult" could live?

What quantity of children's blood fuels this machine?

We Are All Just Walking Each Other Home

The clock is ticking.

Moments unfold, your tale told.

You: the tale teller.

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Post from 7 Days Ago: What Defines You?

Being a Happy Loner

Today I did something that everyone does from time to time: ask Google what's wrong with me. My symptoms? Contentment in being alone. The answer that I found made me incredibly happy.

I am a loner.

What is a loner?

A loner is that person who either avoids human interaction or just doesn't seek it out.

Why would a person choose that life?

Possibly just because it's what that person likes, or because the person is shy, religious in some way, or mystical. The person might also just have a personal philosophy that doesn't jive with other people's personal philosophies. (And don't forget: we all have one.) Loners might also seek solitude to avoid the pain and anxiety of social interaction. But the bottom line is: a loner is habitually alone.

If you are feeling sorry for the person being described, you are probably not meant to be a loner.

When I found the Wikipedia article on loners, I was overjoyed.

When did I become a loner?

I became a loner in January, 2015 while I was taking a metal casting class. At the time, I was dating someone who wasn't good for me. To avoid the stress of being around her, I isolated myself in the foundry, working 10 to 12 hours every day on my art. When I wasn't making art in the foundry, I painted in my room.

While at first I was seeking solitude to avoid my girlfriend, the habit lasted longer than my relationship with her. In spending so much time alone, I discovered that solitude had amazing healing powers.

For the second semester of my senior year, I spent more quality time alone than I ever had before in my life. I discovered that I could spend entire days or weekends alone and not feel like I had missed anything. And now, almost a year later, I still feel content to be myself by myself.

What does solitude do for me?

Pacing. We all have different heartbeats, and nobody pressures anyone to make their heart beat faster. Why then do we allow ourselves to feel pressured to work faster or be more productive than we know is good for us? Solitude allows me to live at my own pace, by my own rules, in relative serenity.

Quiet. When there is no one else, the volume knob of life is between my fingers.

Peace. To be alone is to be free from the drama that haunts people's everyday lives. While I can still support my friends over the phone, I am safely removed from the suffering by physical distance. As for any emotional problems I have, each of them is an opportunity to practice some more independent self-care.

Unity. They say you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. That's absolutely correct, and in spending more time with myself, I become more like myself. That's a great thing.

If this seems like vain navel-gazing to you, you're correct. According to an old book I used to read, "All is vanity." Whether you're looking inward at your navel to please yourself, or outward at other people's navels to please them, or even upward to please God's holy navel, it's all vain navel-gazing.

Let that sink in.

Does solitude have drawbacks?

Yes. On a very practical level, you start to lose habits that were ingrained in you pretty early like combing your hair or wearing deodorant. Then, on going out with friends after being alone for a while, you have to remind yourself to do things that you maybe did automatically for 22 years of your life. However, this "drawback" also comes with the added bonus of being far less concerned with little things like how one's hair looks.

One drawback for social people attempting to be loners would obviously be the lack of people, but for happy loners this is not the case. I am fortunate to have good friends to phone every once in a while. Those interactions are perfect for loners like me because they allow loners to continue being alone while at the same time spending time with another person. All of the benefits of friendship, with all the convenience of solitude. I should write commercials.

Are you a loner?

Are you a part of the anti-tribe? Do you feel like you have something to bond over with a bunch of people who are OK never meeting you? Now that you know that loners are a thing, do you finally feel like you belong? Even though you don't?

Tell me what it's like for you to be alone (acuddlediva@gmail.com).

A Three-Step Guide to Being Free from Your Emotional Life

Emotions are like mosquitoes. There really is no reason why they exist except to annoy us. That's why I've decided to tell you the secret to unleashing your potential as a rational human being.

In this short post, I'm going to give you a foolproof plan for separating yourself from the world of your emotions. It's not easy, but the reward is worth it: a peaceful, meaningless, gray existence where nothing matters and nothing touches your heart.

(1) Believe that you can stop feeling something, if you want to.

Meditation is a great way to condition yourself to believe this. By subscribing to the tenets of Buddhist ideology, you can alter the way that you interpret your own emotional life. If you get really good at it, you can stop feeling controlled by your emotions. They might still control your behavior, but you will have totally numbed yourself to their influence that you perceive yourself to be totally free---enlightened, even. And that's what we're aiming for: a numbness to emotion that we can justify to ourselves as an advantage.

(2) Believe that emotions only last as long as you feel them.

Thanks to our rational faculties, this one is not too hard to believe. It's intuitive, after all; our lives consist largely of our conscious experiences; therefore, if we're not feeling sad, how could we have sadness? The goal of believing that emotions are transient things that pass with their conscious appearance is twofold: one, we feel a sense of release from our emotions, which makes us feel free and powerful (and who doesn't want that?); second, we gain the conviction that we can ignore our emotions entirely, because they will be different tomorrow.

Depressed? Don't worry about it. You might feel happy tomorrow.

Anxious? Probably doesn't matter. Just ignore it.

This way, we can make decisions based on reasons alone, unfettered by the fickleness of the heart.

(3) Believe that emotions can't affect your behavior if you deny them.

Man, would it be terribly inconvenient if emotions controlled us even if we channeled all our rational powers and plowed through them. Imagine a world where racist prejudices prevented you from befriending people of other backgrounds even though you don't believe that you are a racist. That would throw a wrench into your sense of autonomy like nothing else. In order to feel like you're in control of your life, it's essential---ESSENTIAL---to think that denying your emotions actually blocks them from having an effect on your behavior. 

Now it's your turn! Time to say goodbye to emotions.

My advice to everyone out there who struggles with emotions is just to cut yourself off from them. Maybe you will do things that you don't quite understand and you will feel like a walking corpse, but at least you won't be burdened by uncomfortable feelings.

Good luck!