“A man without a soul in not a man at all.”
So Renée Descartes walks
into a bar and the barman asks him, “Do you care for a drink, sir?” Descartes
then replied, “I think not.” Then he disappeared.
It was an awful joke.
Among many other great
things, Descartes was known for the philosophical saying “I think therefore I am,” which,
to be honest, is already an awfully overused saying nowadays. But it seems
though that not many people are able to grasp what Descartes’ saying really
meant. It was right under their noses.
Thinking is what makes a
man. It has been one of our defining characteristics as human beings. It is
what is believed to be the thing that ultimately separates as a species from
the rest of the animals.
Back in the ancient times,
there have been countless interpretations as to how man is separated from the
rest of the living creatures. In the book of Genesis, man was described to be a
living soul with a spirit, considering that all creation which is essentially
made from dust bestowed with the breath of life is called a living soul. The term spirit of man was
referred to as the man’s will— his capacity to think, feel and decide for
himself. And thus this allows him to have dominion over himself and the
creation around him.
The great philosophers
Plato, Socrates and Aristotle also have interpretations regarding the nature of
the soul. Generally, they believed that the soul is an essential part of the
human being which causes him to decide how he behaves. The soul is actually
viewed as every quality that only a human being has— his consciousness, his
emotions and his desires. And since these characteristics of man are
metaphysical, they believed that the soul is man’s separate existence from his
tangible self.
But whatever differences
there may be in the understanding of the human soul, whether it be
philosophical or spiritual, whether it come in different names or different
parts, there is a common thing that all these interpretations agree upon— that
the soul is the embodiment of a man’s being, the sum of his thoughts, emotions,
desires and actions. The essence which if taken away, man ceases to be.
The concept of the soul has
shaped our definition of humanity. It has helped establish our sense of
morality and ethics. It helped us define what we are and what we should be:
beings with souls.
But what is a soul anyway?
Though the generalization of the concepts of the soul from different views and
perspectives has already been expounded, the concept of the soul was still not
concretely defined.
In this age of reason and
discovery, the metaphysical concept of the soul slowly becomes a mere shadow of
philosophers past. Knowledge has become equivocal to perception. The heart, the
mind and the ego are seen as nothing more than metaphors. There is only the
brain and its interconnected networks of billions of neurons which allows man
to reason, its hormones and neurotransmitters which allow man to feel urges and
emotions, its sensory nerves which allow man to perceive, and its
ever-changing connections of synapses and nerve impulses which sum up man’s
consciousness, subconsciousness and personality.
The empirical soul is
nothing more than a metabolic process, no different than any other process in
the human body.
The fullness of man is but the sparks in his head.
Though it seems too absurd
to view that the essence of man is nothing more than bits of electrical sparks
in the brain rather than the romanticized emotive philosophy of how man is and
supposed to be, the very perception of absurdity allows one to realize that it
was more than what it is. The subjectivity of emotions and perceptions make a
person reject what he refuses to believe and makes him decide his own fabric of
his own reality.
This is the beauty of it—
the beauty of seemingly parallel truths coexisting in one universe.
Now where does this put us?
One might wonder.
All these things actually
are just mere ponderings as to where we are right now. The nature of man,
paradoxical perceptions and the beauty of it were just tools to realize the
intricateness of our existence. Sadly in this time, if Descartes’ saying were literal,
I would have been one of the nonexistent. Even sadder is that humanity would
have decreased tremendously, as they have ceased to exist as well.
How many of us, I wonder,
have lost their souls?
How many people have lost
their capacity to live?
Perhaps this is the
consequence of an already-enlightened society. Since almost everything is
already found out, every information already compartmentalized, we have been
spared from thinking, making us trust the system that has been existent since
before we even came to be. Our lives revolve around passing down information
after information, knowing things without seeking them, eating the food we did
not harvest. However, there is a big difference between knowing and realizing,
information and actualization.
Man has become more
interested in the question ‘how’
rather than ‘why’; how they will
succeed, how they will earn, how they will survive.
This makes him superficial.
Even if we look in the
smaller picture— the classroom— in my personal observation, when it comes with
a mathematical concept or scientific law for an instance, most students are
more concerned in memorizing the already-derived formulas rather than
understanding and analyzing the logic behind it— of why things are. Students
have become more concerned in simply having a certain problem solved rather
than knowing its essence. One of the reasons I have deduced is because the
system has twisted man’s perception of the world. Students prioritize grades
rather than their increased understanding of the universe. The society has
oversimplified existence— to enter the system, earn and enjoy the spoils of
hard work. This notion made people’s lives revolve around frivolity. This made
life almost hedonistic for the very reason that the epitome of man’s life— the
reason for all man’s endeavors— revolves around attaining his pleasures and
desires.
Party every Friday. Beer
every pay day. A yacht for retirement. An expensive funeral.
Never even knowing his place
in the universe.
Although the system exists
with the purest of intentions, through the course of time, it has become a
tradition and nothing more than a practice or a custom that must be kept and
passed on, never actually knowing why. And so we ask why every younger generation
is worse than the other— less skillful, less intelligent than those of the
‘golden days.’ We complain about politicians with no sense of ideals stealing
from our pockets. We wonder why enormous enterprises compete for world
domination. We are stressed with passionless workers with no regard to anything
or anyone. We are threatened by those who are willing to kill for a slice of
bread or a glimpse of luxury.
Our definition of life has
been clouded. We are burdened with superficial problems. We are driven by
primal needs. We wonder why there are no noble men left like the heroes of old,
who would serve his country and his people with honor and valor. We wonder why
less people are willing to give their lives to others. People who have reached
the peak of man’s need, which is self-actualization according to Abraham
Maslow, seem to be people of legends and have been branded as saints and
heroes, which to me, seems very perplexing since we are all human beings, but
only a very significant few are only able to find the paradigm of themselves.
Why is this so? This is
because man is fed with egocentrism, his aspirations and dreams defined by the
society. Man’s value for law, ideology, morality, truth and beauty had been
obscured by the need to feed, rest and mindlessly revel. Man lives for himself
in the system. He is, and should, be self-sufficient.
We light candles to those
who have taken their lives trying to escape the system. Behind our pity, lies
our hidden prejudice— poor deranged mind.
People who question their existence and refuse to conform are labeled crazy, as
they cannot accept their state, as they cannot find a rational explanation for
all that is happening around them. Who is
the crazy one? What is the real
problem, the need to feed or the need to exist? People know that the answer
is the latter, but as they cease reading this, they’ll go back to their lives
bearing the opposite truth, changing once more the definition of that poor deranged mind as they ride once
more to the momentum of the system.
I do not mean to sound like
a conservatist or a liberalist depending on how it is perceived, nor do I mean
to say that the system needs to be abolished. The system is an important part
of the civilization and it is what anchors it to its very foundations. But if
the system were to improve man’s quality of life but not man’s quality of
living, then isn’t it opposing to the very reason why we are advancing? Man
discovers, learns and increases his knowledge for him to transcend into a
higher form of existence and not the other way around, for if we do, we would
lose our identity in this world as a species— as a being. We would lose our
essence in the universe— the meaning of living and the will to live.
Man needs to pause in the
momentum and question himself,
assure himself he is where he is supposed to be,
think and doubt,
and regain his soul,
and know that he lives again.