SOUL_SEARCHING
On a sunny mid-day
a crossing of the road,
from this end to that end, a relentless crossing,
the end not reached yet;
a zebra crossing,
the rules of the traffic,
given, not created by a human caprice,
I, crossing the road,
a body clutching the soul,
tightly, lovingly, like a woman clutching the child.
Why ask the question,
"Do I have a soul?"
So long as the body, so long the soul.
Sushama Karnik
On a sunny mid-day
a crossing of the road,
from this end to that end, a relentless crossing,
the end not reached yet;
a zebra crossing,
the rules of the traffic,
given, not created by a human caprice,
I, crossing the road,
a body clutching the soul,
tightly, lovingly, like a woman clutching the child.
Why ask the question,
"Do I have a soul?"
So long as the body, so long the soul.
Sushama Karnik
“Do you have a soul? This question, which may be philosophical, theological, or simply misguided in nature, has a particular relevance for our time. In the wake of psychiatric medicines, aerobics, and media zapping, does the soul still exist?”
“Dualisms have prevailed since antiquity, some thought to consist of complementary dynamics of flux and others of troublesome contradictions. Despite scientific efforts that have attempted to reduce it to soma, the psyche, which we have failed to locate (is it in the heart? the humors? the brain?), has remained an implacable enigma. As a structure of meaning, the psyche represents the bond between the speaking being and the other, a bond that endows it with a therapeutic and moral value. Furthermore, by rendering us responsible to our bodies, the psyche shields us from biological fatalism and constitutes us as speaking entities.”
Julia Kristeva. Les Nouvelles Maladies de l'âme (New Maladies of the Soul), 1993
Image: Steps by Aleksander Rodchenko, 1930.
#philosophy #psychoanalysis #kristeva #photography #rodchenko #soul
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