Soul
Jennifer Kreizman
Soul; the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being, regarded as immortal. Though Oxford has the word defined, the term has no set-in-stone meaning. The word is simply intangible. How can one understand its intricacy if one cannot reach for the soul or feel the soul within one’s palm? With this intangibility, one can define the word time and time again without fear of being wrong. The soul can be used spiritually, lovingly, or even morbidly. The word’s meaning lies solely in how one perceives it and how one chooses to deal with it. The philosopher Heraclitus stated that, “You could never arrive at the limits of the soul, no matter how many roads you traveled. So deep is its mystery.” So possibly, it’s not that the word is undefinable, but rather, the term can carry many faces. Soul is often poetic in literature, leaving warm connotations on your tongue no matter how cold the sentence may be. The term is used to define levels of depth that can be formed in relationships, so much so that it involves the soul, the innermost essence, of a being. While it can seem cliche or worn out, the word is used to personify the perplexity of human nature. A quote in the book Song of Achilles makes use of the word in this way; when talking about the depths of his love, Patroclus states, “He is half of my soul, as the poets say.” While the sentence is used in the context of Achilles’ soon death, the statement adds new depth to the word while adding new depth to their relationship. The word here shows that not only is the soul your innermost essence, but it can join people to a further degree, to a state where even the soul is shared. Another person to define the word similarly was the philosopher Aristotle. He once said, “What is a friend? A
124 ~ Storm
