tropology

	souls of Time gary e. davis	September 3, 2020

As if we are of the winds, spirits (in “essence”).

soul of etymology

soul of genealogy

ensouled worldliness (Inworldness) of a life I’ve discussed the notion of lifeworld some, mentioned it much, and intend to do lots more, but presently I want to dwell with the notion relative to thinking about “soul.” The historical intimacy of soul with vitality of life as such and human being gives to ‘life’ here an echo supplementing the term’s place in “lifeworld,” there proximally about a person in a life. “Life” potentially implies—by historical legacy—thinking about being, not because it’s appropriated by academic interest, but because the genealogy of ordinary questioning of one’s life traces back into humanity’s appreciation of being “soul.” Conversely, thinking about one’s soul-in-the-world (which is integral to the history of articulation) is “exactly” the lifeworldliness and inquiry into worldly human vitality that comprises humanistic psychology, positive psychology, and lifeworld phenomenology. There’s nothing obscure about questions of being, relative to the history of thinking about a soul’s obscurity. Thinking about lifeworldliness echoes that history.

“Soul” is Selfality (variously historized). I’ve said a lot about Self (even associated ‘soul’ and Self many years ago: “With ‘self,’ do we still need soul?).” In a phrase, Self is the implicity of oneself (one’s proxmal sense of self) which is appreciable as psychal depth (thus oneself appre-ciated as being of oneSelf) and appreciable as potentially comprehending one’s humanity as belonging with/in our humanity highly. Soul is a folk notion of inner self-differentiability, whereby enlightenment gained is associated with higher, deeper potential worthy of essentialist conception— which we know modernly as potential of intelligence to highly individuate. One can be so much more than one has been with others “so far” and relative to their conceptions. Such realization overwhelms modern adolescents; and becomes integral to higher education. The potential so overwhelmed premoderns that it was “explained” with gods inhabiting oneself (where most of human evolution has been led by young adults and teens, facing harsh realities of short lives).

individuation of wayfaring: aspiring to flourish beyond subjectivity

from proximal personhood to one’s belonging in the scale of humanity Centripetal enhancement of oneself draws appealing horizons nearer to self-identity, potentially dissolving a discrete S/s difference (such as feeling inhabited by spirits) into higher sense of cohering self relative to higher sense of engaged belonging. Appealing heights (ideals, promise) are brought home, as dwelling is transported toward those highs, like Earthly distance becoming nearby neighborhood; enlight- enment from elsewhere revealing Itself as having already always mirrored one’s own potential; or depths of oneSelf—historicity in historicality (yet beyond given history)—being wholly alive. Soul/Self is of family, of neighborhood, of community and of shared region. Appreciating that highly, distantly, and deeply shows an actualization of one’s integral potential for being of the scaling scalarity, from proximal self relating with family, through family in relating to neighborhood irt community irt region. An eraic heart / soul /Self (mindfulness) essentially belongs to interplaying continua: Intimacy, kindredness, friendship, solidarity, and civility which weave with love, empathy, compassion, genuineness, and decency, which weave with self, family, neighborhood, community, and region.

soulfulness Folk cultural notions of soulfulness implicitly express desire for wholly flourish-ing life, I think. Authenticity lives at best (ideally, I prospect) with fidelity to wholly flourishing full mindfulness—situationally only showing partially because aptly interpersonal life is mutual (or mutually inter-selfal in family/friendship; mutually inter-Selfal, at best, in intimacy), and always open to enhancing its relating. That’s my prospecting, but it coheres with related literary history and contemp-orary excursions into soul. Harold Bloom finds motifs of proactive being fully of oneSelf originating in Gnosticism, “akin to Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance,’ where the oldest and best aspects of the self are seen as not being part of nature. Ancient Gnosticism named these elements in the self as the pneuma, authentic spirit or breath, the true person” (Genius, xviii). That’s reborn in the audacities of the English Romantics (who gave Bloom so much of his mystically-inspired American “Daemon”) and romances venturing to find a “soul mate”; or minds enthralled with feelings of thinking as one, which (I noted earlier) “creative collaborators enjoy (e.g., improvisational actors); or brainstorming inquirers playing off each other’s thinking.” Or high convenings which evince some unnamed wonder. There’s no end to it all: potential for synergies.

next—> a heuristic mindfulness

 

 

Be fair. © 2020, gary e. davis