Souls cannot be fooled... in Souls Cannot Be Fooled

So. When I came back here I had a couple of thing I wanted to do. I’d call them goals if I didn’t so thoroughly hate that word. Let’s just say there was an agenda. If I was going to come back and write, I needed some things to write about.

Lord knows that I can spice up the silly daily occurrences that so often amuse me and I find worthy of your attention, on occasion. But I didn’t want to make my this the neo-Seinfeldian blog of a 40-something year old man as he chased down 50 and whatever comes after.

No, I wanted to use this place as someplace where I could come and think out loud. I want it to be someplace where I can just kind of…philosophize. Is that a word? Spellcheck seems to be cool with it, so I suppose I am. I have this idea and it’s not fully formed and I think it’s something I have to figure out. I think it’s something I’m supposed to figure out. Most importantly, it’s something I know can never, truly be figured out. It’s impossible. Truly, impossible.

Obviously, that means I have to take a crack at it. Why not spend my 40’s trying to understand a concept that many others have tried and failed to understand? Why not have a go at something beyond the realm of men and women. Why not have a go at something so spiritual that it may be the very definition of what it means to be spiritual?

I was going to say that it started with a song, but that’s wrong. It didn’t. The song was just kind of a reminder that I’m not the first person to ask these questions. I’m not the first to take this strange trail. But the song sparked something in me. I’d heard it a bunch of times before but one day the lyrics just…invaded me. I looked them up. I downloaded the song. And then I listened to it on repeat, over and over, with nothing else, for days.

The song is played at the end of one of my favorite movies. It’s called The Way, Way Back. Steve Carrell is in it. He’s amazing as the asshole stepfather of a boy who he hates and is abusive towards. He’s also very sneaky in the way he manipulates the boy’s mother to think that all the things, the abuses he carries out against the boy are all from a good place and things the boy needs.

Well. Anyone who knows me knows that subject is one that hits home pretty hard for me. In the end, with the help of some friends/family he makes the boy overcomes the asshole. It could easily be a trigger movie for me, like This Boy’s Life can be. But instead, because of the way it unfolds (not unlike how my own story did, though less dramatic and less Hollywood) it’s a triumph to watch. It’s…reassuring. I can watch it over and over again.

But I digress. The song. The song toward the end is a song called Power Hungry Animals by The Apache Relay. You should go look the lyrics up. Then you should go listen to it over and over again. In case you don’t, I’ll give you the abridged version. The song tells us that we should let these power hungry animals “eat” if they want to. We should let them chase power and money and let it consume them. If that’s what they want, then let them have it. Because, as they continue to tell us, souls cannot be fooled.

In other words, what you sacrifice to get money and power cannot be healed with the acquisition of it. Life is about feeding the soul and money and power and void of nutritional value. It speaks to a flaw in the plans of men and women who think that by gathering more unto themselves that they actually have more. It’s junk food. It’s something you eat and yet find yourself hungry an hour later. It’s Chinese food.

I’ve never defined success by what I have. That’s awfully convenient because I don’t have anything. But I’ve always felt that happiness is the greatest currency. If I’d ever truly–truly–experienced it, perhaps I’d say that it’s love, but what is love if not the ultimate form of happiness?

Anyway. I think my pursuit of small happinesses has fed my soul and I think my well-fed soul…because it’s well-fed, I believe it speaks to me. We all have that little voice inside of us that speaks to us. I think that’s part of it. I think it’s the most basic part of it. For instance, I believe that my soul is in communication with other souls. I believe that. Too many times, I think of someone I care for only to check my phone and see a text waiting for me there, from them. Too often I’m overcome with momentary sadness, only to find out that someone I care for just got some bad news. Too often, the right person calls or emails or texts at the right time–when I need it most, out of the blue.

But there it is, huh? Now, I’ve done it. I just jumped into the middle of things with a half-assed explanation that’s sure to have you all wondering if I may need to be committed. Worry not, what I’ve spoken of here are large jumps made over a long period of time. I didn’t jump to these conclusions, I came upon them slowly. I came upon them begrudgingly. I fought this process. But it fought back.

The idea that souls cannot be fooled is one of the things that turned the light on. Souls cannot be fooled. Souls cannot be fooled. And there is a soul in each of us. A bit of the Divine Spark. A piece of God that resides inside of us. Of course it couldn’t be fooled. And of course, it could communicate with other parts of itself placed in others.

It fit in nicely with my older theory. That theory was that God truly wanted us all to be happy. That’s the purpose of life. We’re here to be happy. I decided that when you looked at it, truly looked at it, what God gave us was Eden. He gave us a garden filled with food and fauna and sunshine and light and life. All we had to do was run around, play, fuck, smile, eat and be happy. But we ruined that. Life since then? I think we’ve missed the point. I think we’ve always supposed to have been searching for Eden. We may never get it back in the way that it was, but we can have a part of it.

And I think our souls direct us in that way. It’s more than just that little voice. That little voice is the littlest part of it.

Have you ever done something for someone else, something selfless, something you did just because? Have you ever done something and then felt the way you feel only when you’ve done something for someone else?

Have you ever made a baby laugh? Have you ever sung at the top of your lungs to a song on the radio? Have you ever danced for no reason? Have you ever given a gift that you just couldn’t wait to give because you knew how much it would be appreciated? Have you ever written something that made someone feel–laugh or cry? Have you ever watched a toddler watch a balloon as it flew higher and higher into the sky until it was just a dot–and then it was no more?

These are all what I call soul moments. Moments when we truly ping our souls and feel their vibration as it resonates through us like a bell.

Think about life. Think about how we’re born. Think about children because I believe children are most in touch with their souls. They understand them. They listen to them. If you left it up to kids, they’d be happy all day, every day. Kids understand the value of play and sharing and happiness and it’s all they seek out…until we start placing other pressures on them. Until we corrupt them. Little by little. And these kids, these beautiful children, because they too have free will, they see us and see us prioritizing the wrong things and because they want our approval, they follow us and they become like us and they get older and they fall more and more out of sync with their souls.

What is the meaning of life? I’ve come to believe life is the quest for the Eden that was lost long before we were born. I think life is a journey to that Eden. It’s the pursuit of happiness. And I believe our souls are our guides. I believe they are our compass, our light, our companion, our love. I believe the internet’s power to unite us is a joke next to the power that has always been a part of us, that resides in us, that unites us, binds us, penetrates us and makes each of us part of a whole that we can’t even comprehend.

I believe in the connectivity of humankind by means of soul power. I believe that I can learn to talk. I believe you can learn to hear. And vice versa. I believe we’re all connected. I do. And it’s something I can never fully, truly explain. It’s not even something I can ever fully understand. It’s certainly not something I can convince all of you about. And I know I’ve just barely cracked the surface of it. I know that I know nothing. Not in the grand scheme of things. I know nothing. But no. That’s not true. I have a clue. I have a hint. And if I quiet my mind, if I push aside the pursuit of foolish things, if I can manage to not be a power hungry animal, if I can surrender, if I can find peace, use my Jedi powers, do yoga until I’m one with nature. If I do those things, I know I hear it. I hear it inside of me more clearly. I see the path. I find courage to wander the strange trails of life and that slowly, step by agonizing step, if I listen, if I hear, I know that I might just find my way back to whatever version of Eden is left.

And I want to explore this theory here. I’m happy to take on all comers. If you think I’m nuts, you can say so. If you think I’ve gone crackpot you can let me have it. If you think I’m a blowhard or a fool or way too simplistic that’s fine. I happen to think simple is divine. The light is always there for those who are in the dark.

So, from time to time, you’re going to have to put up with this bullshit. You’re just going to have to listen to me ramble about my soul and who it’s been talking to and what it’s learned. I’m going to want to work things through and work them out. I want to confront myself. I want to fight my own theories. I want to discover. Writing has always been a way for me to work things out and I have a lot to work out here.

So. That’s part of what comes next. I’m curious to see where it all goes. I guess we’ll find out together.