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Thursday, August 13, 2015

On the Edge of My Soul: An experimental writing exercise

"As a body everyone is single, as a soul never." Hermann Hesse

I’ve always wondered what makes up a soul.  Dr. Duncan McDougal thought it could be quantified into 21 grams.  I can only quantify mine as lonely and dark at times .  I’m trying hard to focus, but the everything around me, including me, is so out of balance that I can’t function properly.  Too much computer, to little humanity.  Too many walls, not enough world.  It’s all a giant hazy perspective that my soul is screaming at me about.  You know, that nagging voice of reason, yearning, hope at the back of your head.  No, not the ones that tell you you’re a failure, you’re pathetic, insignificant, hopeless.  Those are the reflections of all the pain and anguish you’ve gone through.  Ironically, they are usually more of a reflection of others pain, forced and inflicted upon you, as your own.  

I sometimes wonder how much of a mirror the soul really is.  I always imagined it like a reflecting pool.  What you see is partially what is inside but also what is outside, reflected back.  But, instead of being completely separate from everyone else, we’re more of reflecting pools, we reflect and refract all that’s around us; intermingling with the waters around us.  If all we surround ourselves with is ugliness, how do we not start mirroring some of that back.  How do our waters not become tainted.  If we surround ourselves with beauty, how do we not mirror that back, our pools clearer, cleaner and deeper than before.  But for every ugliness, pain, jealousy, doubt... that is put upon us and that we put upon ourselves, our soul becomes marred, tarnished and scratched… polluted, cloudy, shallow; less reflective and interactive, more murky and dark.


So, today, I need to remember to polish my mirror, or... share my water with something beautiful. 
And here you are.       

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