He not busy being born is busy dying. Bob Dylan’s poetic observation on stagnation has been repeated and bastardized so often that at times it can feel trite. That gut-reaction is misplaced, however. One need only to look to Plato and oral based systems of knowing to find the epistemological value of aphorisms made manifest. The real question is, how can we ensure a life of continuous birth for ourselves and others?
My modest proposal revolves around a concept I call the Land of the Soul. The Land of the Soul isn’t a place, really, but it is a destination, a type of Nirvana we are called to strive towards, and a turn of phrase that is not my own.
Perhaps it would be easier to understand if I started at the beginning.
Nobody is their fully-realized and best self in middle school, I am no exception. My sixth-grade year was particularly hard and, even for a 12-year-old, I was a sullen creature. I felt isolated and deeply unsure of myself and my purpose. I was lost, rebelliously atheistic and increasingly nihilistic. To make matters worse, my doctors had put me on a new medication regimen that sapped the fire in my belly and quieted the song in my soul. My life was the kind of dead-eyed-half-life that makes it easy for eugenicists to demonize the marginalized. I felt as if I had fallen victim to a dementor attack. I drifted about in listless, soulless, purposelessness.
My sixth-grade year was a tough one for my father too. At the time he was serving as the rabbi for a congregation in Glouster, Massachusetts. That year, in an accident at once devastating and absurd, his synagogue burned down. The seeming senselessness fueled my pre-teen nihilism and shook my father’s sense of stability. As a result he, like I, found himself out in the wilderness.
Then, as is often the case in my life, music intervened. Desperate to rebuild the synagogue my father set about raising funds. In one such effort he invited Neshama Carlebach to perform for his congregation.
I attended the concert begrudgingly, my lights dimmed by the metaphysical funk in which I found myself. However, when the music began I was utterly taken in – enraptured in the truest sense. One particular song, Return Again, spoke to me. The song is a simple and true call to purity, imploring listeners to “return, return, return again, return to the land of your soul”.
The authenticity of the message spoke to me, it resonated in my bones. My heart, my being, my essence pulsed with the rhythm. I felt alive, energized, awakened from my desolate slumber. The music, born from fire, was the spark my life needed. I knew I needed to go to the land of the soul. There was only one problem, I had no idea where it was.
As much as sixth-grade me loathed the expectations of performative pious perfection that being the rabbi’s son carried it is not a position without its privileges. I was able to meet Nashama. I spoke to her after her performance with high praise and one question on my lips:
Where is my land of the soul? Where is my land of the soul?! Where is it!
I repeated and pleaded, I groveled and begged, I implored and insisted, I needed to know. My life depended on it.
Graciously, she answered: “It’s different for everyone”.
In hindsight I know this answer to be correct and nuanced, despite its concision. Each person has a land of the soul, a place where ecstasy comes as easily as your next breath. A place where you find fulfillment and purpose. Where your work increases others’ ability to live a continuous birth and in that act of service are born again yourself.
What’s more, our Lands of the Soul are dynamic. They aren’t shimmering islands on the horizon beckoning us across the lonesome sea. No, they are more like islands you might find in a Mario game ever shifting, growing, shrinking, transforming, floating in a constellation of aspiration and ability.
Neshama’s answer was true for another reason. The reaching the land of the soul is a distinct journey for each of us. As a pre-teen this information disappointed me. I needed someone to carry me there, to light a lantern and show me the way. However, the fundamental truth is that nobody can bring you to your land of the soul.
Reaching the land of the soul requires putting in the hard work of building a positive identity. It requires skills in life-building and a meta-ability in figuring out your own ability. With this in mind, the prospect of the journey to the Land of the Soul is, undoubtedly, daunting. It need not be.
While the beauty of blazing one’s own trail and drawing your own map is unrivaled, one can just as easily reach the land of the soul using a tried and true map. However, we must be careful to distinguish between the benevolent mentor putting a compass in our hand, filling our canteen, giving us a slap on the back and sending us on our way and the Q-Anon Shaman exploiting underdeveloped identities and leading us to worship at temples other than our own. The difference between the two is that the first relies on our recognition of our own shortcomings and our desire to remediate them while the second leaves us adrift in the malevolent currents of the manipulative.
Put another way, a lack of self-authorship leaves our identities open to manipulation. Authoring your own identity is a difficult exercise of meta-ability (we should look to Lisa Miller’s ideas on a common core for life-building to ease the burden). Independent self-authorship is impossible for anyone. Everyone is influenced by others in the authoring of identity. We must rely on others to show us the way to the Land of the Soul the question is by whom and to what extent. if However, we must be careful to ensure that our decision on who to follow is taken consciously and voluntarily.
Though some might regard my proposal that those who lack the meta ability to find their Land of the Soul as an abominable abdication of personal sovereignty. However, the stakes are too great to look down at real people from a philosophical high horse. We need only to look to Narendra Modi’s BJP’s turn to divisive nationalism, to the resurgence of 21st century humans relying on astrology to guide their decisions, to the vile weed of conspiracy growing from the cracks in liberal democracy to understand the danger in the destination-less malaise that has characterized these last two decades. Those who have no path are easily misled.
The Land of the Soul is the antidote to listless malaise. It is the destination we ought to seek, despite the obstacles in our way. It is the opera house whose perfect design allows your acts and essence to resonate in endless harmony. It is an island paradise in the middle of a tumultuous sea whose beauty is all the more precious for the trials undertaken to get there. It is worth it.
My call to you, dear reader, is to identify your Land of the Soul. Find your map. Blaze your trail. Have the humility to recognize when you need help and the wisdom to ask for it. Don’t allow yourself to be led astray by the false prophets of easy identity. Practice self-authorship, sink your feet in the shifting sands of your Land of the Soul, dock your ship in its changing harbor, keep time with the music of your soul, or else your self will be torn asunder.