An external Vs an Internal Soul

The idea of an external soul resonates well with me, the spirit and the definition of a soul being a singular piece, a part of the body that sticks to you and does nothing till you die and it just wanders away doesn't sound right. The human soul is described as this thing of such great value an import and power, that mere human bodies would not contain it. There are many stories about souls resting outside the body, Punchkin the evil wizard with his bird keeping his soul safe, Voldemort and his horcruxes, the Na'vi people and the tree of life from Avatar, if we were to extrapolate the soul to the power of an individual, Morgoth from the wheel of time series in the treasure of Shadar Logoth, Ruin and the beads of Atium in Mistborn, and even Sauron and the one ring from the Lord of the Rings all show an external soul, and one that influences those who interact with it.

"The external soul as a part of us that is out there, but one that we lack the ability to grasp" The Doctor Ian who spoke with us mentioned this and I believe that he was in the most part correct, we cannot touch the external soul, just as we cannot the internal, but I do believe that even though we cannot touch it or fully understand it, we can interface with it. 

Because the thought of the human soul is one that lacks true proof and exists in so many different cultures, literatures, and mythologies, the idea of what the soul is and where it should be or go is widely varied. So, in order to pin this down, I will use Dr. Ian's discussions in conjunction with my personal experience with the soul to pin down how I see the external soul. 

"The soul is not a single entity nor is it designated for a single location...", an idea proposed by the Doctor when he was discussing the ideas of those he lived with in Australia when he came in contact with these ideas of the external soul. Those he was living with have the idea that there are connections between people and what is around them, and the example of which he spoke the most was that of the whale dreamers. Whale dreamers are what they sound like, they are those who dream of the whales, but more than that, they believe that their soul exists too, in the whale. This is believed to a degree to which it is not just religious thought, but truth to them, and they can answer honestly that they, the man or woman who holds these ideas, are in fact a whale. They experience such deep connection to these that they derive emotions from whales when they see them. This is because to them, their soul exists outside of the body, it moves about and is one with something outside of them, and only in death does the soul become a thing internal, something attached to the body, mind, and name of those who passed.

This idea of the soul attaching to the body after death and becoming malevolent after the thoughts and words of the living call it back from wherever it went after death to the realm of the living is a very interesting one, and one which, while not explained by the doctor, I believe could have a few interpretations. Death is a very hard subject, one that has plagued humanity since the dawn of time. The death of someone who is close to you is even harder than that of a stranger, and grief and grieving is difficult. Now people all process grief in different ways but one way to do so is to not pay attention to the one who is lost. I believe that this practice is employed in part by the people the Doctor was with. There was a man with whom the Doctor spoke, trying to ask after the man's dead wife, the man refused to say her name or even talk about any portion of her life. Could that have been a way to prevent the reliving of difficult memories of the past and having grief take one like a specter come back to haunt them? Nevertheless, the culture there is one here they cannot speak of their dead and therefore the dead are honored in different ways, indirectly through ritual, but of this the Doctor did not speak much.

Now, the idea of the soul being one with another has been established, the idea that the soul interacting with another has been established, now I would like to speak about the union of those ideas, in the idea of the soul as both an internal part of oneself, and an externally influencing presence. I have been alive for a decently long time, and while not as long as others I have seen things in myself and them that I believe constitutes the soul. I believe that we can conflate the soul with empathy and community. The sharing of emotions in and of another, and the sharing of one another. The whale dreamers met whale hunters, who killed and ate the whales. And in witnessing the event the whale dreamers felt an anguish, as this thing with which their soul was irrevocably tied, was killed, and so theoretically a part of them with it. There are examples from my life and I am sure your life reader where you have had some bond between you and another and felt to them an injury. For many men I know, there is a shared common bond between us in the agony of genital injury, e.g. being kicked in the nuts. In other examples the loss of one's favorite character in a piece of media, the injury of a loved one, or seeing some wrong done to a pet, all evoke powerful emotions within us, reflexive sharing in the moment of emotion and a desire to have something change. This I believe is part of the external soul, the sharing of one's pain, agony, and negative feelings with those who share some bond with you or with whom you share a bond.

There too exists a positive of this, and in empathetic moments, where the mirror neurons of our brains share between them emotions like joy, we share in happiness. When we as people laugh together, when you run alongside your dog, when you see a character you love succeed, when you share in the being with those around you, enjoying life, light, parties, books, characters, ideas and all there is, that is the good of an external soul. Now is this proof of a soul? Of an external soul? Of a god or a spirit or a pantheon? I do not know. These questions are more fitting to be asked by a spiritual or religious philosopher, as I have not the faith for them. But coming at it from my view and understanding, through our mutual experience and the sharing in the mood, I find what I believe to be the feeling of the external souls of those around me. When I bake and someone eats my food and they find joy, I find that same joy made manifest within myself. When a character in a game I've enjoyed, runs afoul of bad times, I feel great pain at theirs. So to conclude, I don't believe in the spirit, the soul, god or ghosts, but I do find them in the people of the earth, and in the connections that interweave reality.

I'm gonna leave this here as I want to keep these for future reminder and reference, but there's nothing down here but quotes and ideas that became the blog above.

was living with the yol...

(the idea of where the soul goes is varied) 

(soul is out there in the world and when you die it becomes something internal

*We exists between each other, power in perception, how others see us, who we are in memory and story creates us outside of ourselves

"the life of a bat is the life of a man, and the life of an owl is a woman's life"

The Indian story punchkin the wizard (locks his soul away in a parrot on the other side of the world so he cannot be killed/harmed whilst his soul/parrot still lives) (think harry potter but not a stolen idea by a transphobe)

by projecting one's understanding of their soul externally to be entwined with the identity of something else, then that which is outside you becomes partly within you, sharing in the soul. Whale dreamers meeting whale hunter

the dreaming, the walkabout (pejorative, taking a journey of unknown duration/destination, modern is the removal of oneself from the norms/rules imposed on one), songlines (dreaming tracks, the recounting of the deities of the Aboriginal peoples across the land since the dawn of time), (important pilgrimage concepts in Australia)

pilgrimage as a way of finding one's people rather than a way to get away

pilgrimage happens usually in the afterlife 

soul is incorporable, intangible, and present, even after having been dismissed, so observing the dead, naming them, talking about them, all brings their spirit back as angry ghosts, so they have to be honored indirectly in ritual.

Spirits come from the people's watering hole and gives a dream unto a man when he is to be a father or when one raises a spear to kill another, and it give him a dream of an animal which influences the young

Empathy and altruism, existence shared are the external soul

talk about your linguistic eccentricities, "my people", cooking for people

the quilt of the world

internal