Soul Work in a Shiny World

On what truly enthralls us

(for the audio version, click above)

This summer, when I needed to create a website for this new chapter of my life, I was drawn to using the phrase soul work. I like the way it combines two words that don’t usually hang out together. I also like that it reminds us there is something worth working on, worth paying attention to, that isn’t sold on Amazon, found on Google, binged on Netflix, or built by Apple.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-tech. Heck, I had already engaged all four of those companies before lunch today. I just think the almighty algorithm has a way of making us feel smaller than we really are and I’m glad to be doing work that helps people think about their lives within a larger context.

I admit I do sometimes feel a little ‘quaint’ when I tell someone that what I do for a living involves something as seemingly obsolete as the soul. I was at a dinner party the other night talking to a hip young couple and asked them what they thought about the soul (I’m a ton of fun at parties these days). They cocked their heads to the side and squinted a little as they tried to compute the question. I might as well have asked their perspective on stagecoaches.

I know, of course, that the word ‘soul’ is loaded, and one that leads to loaded questions like who’s got one and what happens to them when we die. So it’s a lot to be confronted with standing there with a drink in your hand. But by ‘soul,’ I really just mean the deepest, truest part of us, which, I would like to think we all agree is still worth spending time on.

But I’m not so sure we do. Think for a moment about how many more ways there are of getting absorbed in the frivolous now than, say, fifty years ago…or a hundred years ago. Think about how much more time people had then (like it or not) to spend with their thoughts…while they plowed the field or washed the clothes or sat on the porch in the evening with not much else to do.

I’m not pining for the good-ole-days here. I’m pointing out what we’re up against. Things have changed and changed fast. But we’re the same easily-distractible, pleasure-seeking creatures we always were. If there is always a dazzling option to be had (or promised just one click away), what chance does our inner life stand? Bottom line, I worry we are creating a world around us that is so shiny, so entertaining, so enthralling that it’s getting hard to remember there is a world inside of us.

[Btw, that word ‘enthralling’ has always been a favorite of mine, so I looked it up to make sure I was using it in the right context. I learned that it originally referred to “being a servant of” or even “being enslaved.” Back in the 1200’s, a ‘thrall’ was a person who had been placed in bondage. So yes, it was just the word I wanted.]

I know many of us are concerned that AI might someday betray us, but I wonder if we should be asking if we have already betrayed ourselves. Have we curated an external environment so seductive, so captivating, that as a society we are almost completely in its thrall; no longer interested in tending something so subtle as the Spirit.

I hope not. And I know many, many people, and certainly many of you reading this, manage to live with all this amazing technology and entertainment while still making time for nature, silence, prayer, or Warrior II pose. But it’s not always easy, is it?

Life is more hurried and we are more frayed than ever, and sometimes a little Love is Blind on the couch is just what the doctor ordered. But I think we know this will only get us so far. To renew the deepest, truest part of us, we need time to just be. We need to garden, and sew, and go fly fishing. We need to journal and meditate and just stare out the window. We need to reflect on our lives and ask big questions about the meaning of it all. We need to do our soul work.

Spending time on your soul while living in such a shiny world will seem to some people like you’ve taken up stamp collecting. But waver not, my friends. The inner journey is where the real party is, and deep down it’s what we’re all hungry for. And as captivated as we all are by what’s around us, the truth is, the thing that enthralls us the most, still lies within us. And far from being obsolete, our soul is the one thing that never will be.