Soul is a story about Joe Gardner, a middle school band teacher, whose life hasn't necessarily gone the way he thought it would. He dreams of one day becoming a professional Jazz musician. It is what he always wanted in his whole life.
Soul ( AThread)
Life's biggest questions | Meaning, purpose, living
Soul is a story about Joe Gardner, a middle school band teacher, whose life hasn't necessarily gone the way he thought it would. He dreams of one day becoming a professional Jazz musician. It is what he always wanted in his whole life.
And just when he gets the break of a life time to finally fulfill his dream, an untimely accident separates his soul from his body.
As he begins to preced to 'The great beyond' Gardner skips to 'The great before' a world where souls develop personalities and traits before being sent off to earth. There, Gardner must work with 'soul 22' a soul with a dim concept of life.
To help '22' find passion, and in the process discover what it means to have a soul. Passion and obsession are two sides of the same spectrum. It is very easy for one to titre from one end to the other. Their ability to take in the beauty is the greatest inspiration.
How can you bear life's most wholesome fruits if you never truly lived? When Joe reflects upon his time in the great before, he comes to the sad conclusion that his life's amounted to nothing.
Because he never achieved his goal, the reality is, it is that exact goal that's prohibiting him from taking advantage of what life has to offer.
He spent all of this time tirelessly working towards a career in jazz to the point where actually attaining the goal would pale in comparison to the hard labor and sacrifices made along the way.
It is a journey that's incredibly relatable specially for anyone who defines their life based on career achievements. His passion isn't a purpose, it becomes an obsession.
And understanding when that passion becomes an obsession, and when that obsession disconnects you from life's purities, is the key to living again.
But also, for anyone who had a profession in the creative arts, it's an almost religious obsessiveness you have to have to have success and a career in arts.
What Joe Gardner learned is that someone's spark isn't their purpose.
Spark - it's the very essence, or soul, that indicates a human is a human and they're ready to live.
It is such a freeing and mature lesson that often gets drowned out in a world constantly dictating and pressuring us to persue that one 'thing'.
Specially growing up we are constantly questioned by teachers, neighbors, friends and family what it is we want to do when we grow up? is it a reasonable and sustainable goal? How can you actively persue it?
Sure people can have passions but to deduce life to having a singular meaning is restrictive and saddening. People's purposes can change through life experiences, what you thought you're destined for may in fact be what you least expect.
What adds to the genius is how uses the framework of Jazz to deliver its message. Out of all the art forms out there, Jazz is arguably the most raw extension of human emotion.
Traditional music follows a linear structure; in Pre determined path, formed the same way each time you hear it. With Jazz the same song is never performed the same way twice, it's a style of music that thrives off of inspiration and living in the moment.
There's no charts and musical map, it is all about feeling the energy of the room and yourself.
Similar to jazz, to get the most out of living, you should do the following:
More from Culture
This thread examining a detrans story puts me in mind of something that shocked me to the core fifteen years ago in early 2004. I’ve not often told this so there follows a mini thread of my own.
This time in 2004 was very sensitive. Our little team at Press for Change was carefully helping to support the government to get the Gender Recognition Bill through its parliamentary stages. It had already started in the Lords and faced a committee stage with evangelical-backed..
..opposition facing the government’s Bill minister Lord Filkin and and others from all parties supporting him. The heavy lifting of daily liaison work was handled on our side by my colleague Claire @2legged whose back room lobby efforts should never go unacknowledged in any..
..account of events. Our political backdrop was a small but determined effort by two evangelical groups touting very familiar lies about trans people and, perhaps more worrying, a couple of contemporary journalists (one a Guardian staffer and one a freelance) determined to tout..
..detransition scare stories as a way to perhaps cast doubt over formalising a legal recognition process. The thing that was obvious at the time was that their stories relied on constant recycling of the same 10-12 case stories, which they had discovered because they were the..
Found a podcast by Keira Bell talking about her reasons for detransitioning
— Lux \U0001f3f3\ufe0f\u200d\U0001f308 (@Lux_fae) February 2, 2021
Listened to it so you don't have to
Wherein, at the 24-30 min mark, keira talks about her reasons for detransition and admits she did it for her ideology alone.
Thread:
This time in 2004 was very sensitive. Our little team at Press for Change was carefully helping to support the government to get the Gender Recognition Bill through its parliamentary stages. It had already started in the Lords and faced a committee stage with evangelical-backed..
..opposition facing the government’s Bill minister Lord Filkin and and others from all parties supporting him. The heavy lifting of daily liaison work was handled on our side by my colleague Claire @2legged whose back room lobby efforts should never go unacknowledged in any..
..account of events. Our political backdrop was a small but determined effort by two evangelical groups touting very familiar lies about trans people and, perhaps more worrying, a couple of contemporary journalists (one a Guardian staffer and one a freelance) determined to tout..
..detransition scare stories as a way to perhaps cast doubt over formalising a legal recognition process. The thing that was obvious at the time was that their stories relied on constant recycling of the same 10-12 case stories, which they had discovered because they were the..
@bellingcat's attempt in their new book, published by
@BloomsburyBooks, to coverup the @OPCW #Douma controversy, promote US and UK gov. war narratives, and whitewash fraudulent conduct within the OPCW, is an exercise in deception through omission. @BloomsburyPub @Tim_Hayward_
1) 2000 words are devoted to the OPCW controversy regarding the alleged chemical weapon attack in #Douma, Syria in 2018 but critical material is omitted from the book. Reading it, one would never know the following:
2) That the controversy started when the original interim report, drafted and agreed by Douma inspection team members, was secretly modified by an unknown OPCW person who had manipulated the findings to suggest an attack had occurred. https://t.co/QtAAyH9WyX… @RobertF40396660
3) This act of attempted deception was only derailed because an inspector discovered the secret changes. The manipulations were reported by @ClarkeMicah
and can be readily observed in documents now available https://t.co/2BUNlD8ZUv….
4) @bellingcat's book also makes no mention of the @couragefoundation panel, attended by the @opcw's first Director General, Jose Bustani, at which an OPCW official detailed key procedural irregularities and scientific flaws with the Final Douma Report:
@BloomsburyBooks, to coverup the @OPCW #Douma controversy, promote US and UK gov. war narratives, and whitewash fraudulent conduct within the OPCW, is an exercise in deception through omission. @BloomsburyPub @Tim_Hayward_
\u201cAllegations of our involvement with the intelligence services are of course false,\u201d says Bellingcat founder @EliotHiggins https://t.co/55V7sJV9or
— UnHerd (@unherd) February 15, 2021
1) 2000 words are devoted to the OPCW controversy regarding the alleged chemical weapon attack in #Douma, Syria in 2018 but critical material is omitted from the book. Reading it, one would never know the following:
2) That the controversy started when the original interim report, drafted and agreed by Douma inspection team members, was secretly modified by an unknown OPCW person who had manipulated the findings to suggest an attack had occurred. https://t.co/QtAAyH9WyX… @RobertF40396660
3) This act of attempted deception was only derailed because an inspector discovered the secret changes. The manipulations were reported by @ClarkeMicah
and can be readily observed in documents now available https://t.co/2BUNlD8ZUv….
4) @bellingcat's book also makes no mention of the @couragefoundation panel, attended by the @opcw's first Director General, Jose Bustani, at which an OPCW official detailed key procedural irregularities and scientific flaws with the Final Douma Report:
