Periodically one has a soul. Nobody has it all the time and forever. Day after day year after year can pass without it. Sometimes only in rapture and in fears of childhood it dwells within longer. Sometimes only in the astonishment, that we have become old. It rarely assists us in strenuous pursuits, such as moving furniture, carrying suitcases or tromping through a road in tight shoes. While filling in forms and chopping meat it usually takes the day off. In a thousand of our conversations it participates in one, and not even necessarily in one, preferring silence. When our bodies start aching more and more, it silently leaves the ward. It's fussy: it doesn't see us immediately in a crowd, it sickens at our attempts at mere advantage and the shrill clamor of business. Joy and sorrow are not all that different to it. Only in the combination of them does it stand up. We can rely on it, when we are certain of nothing, and when everything seizes us. Among all material objects it likes best clocks with pendulums and mirrors, which work fervently, even when no one looks. It doesn't say where it comes from and when it will disappear next, but it clearly awaits such questions. It looks like, as much as we need it, also it needs us for something too. |