What have you done to convince yourself
you have a soul?
Minh Tan
The soul is a mysterious immaterial concept. I think of it like a life force that makes you a living being, with its mysterious nature being something that involves feelings and/or creativity. It is the part of you that’s anything but logical because programmable robots can be that. That logically means your soul has something to do with feelings and originality, two things you don’t derive.
As immaterial as the soul concept may be, however, we go around saying people’s got soul like we could detect it somehow, and obviously each having a soul like we could sell it to the devil or save it somehow. So came the question to me, how could a soul manifest itself so that others, or oneself, could believe that one had a soul, rather than just take it by default that if one were a living being, one had a soul?
That’s where this question came to me, and I like to answer it with creative endeavours that require some emotions and creativity. It’s as if I reached for humanity and from my uniqueness, I created something new. It’s a concept I love and do a lot of, from writing poetry to songs, to designing new things of every kind like clothes and layouts, or expressing myself in dance and such. Not only do I do these things for fun, though, I sometimes do it just to “check” I still had some soul in me when I feel rather drained. Worst time to try and be creative with feelings, maybe, when drained, but the satisfaction is epic even if the output is rather mediocre or menial.
An example of me checking whether or not I still had some soul was this piano composition below. It’s horribly played by a programmed website that didn’t even allow me to switch tempo as a means to show some feelings when playing the piece, but it was original music. And original music from a guy who didn’t play the piano at that!
Over the years, most of how I’ve tried to manifest my soul has been through poetry. You can see all my poems here. I’ve also had a few tries at songs. I’ve done other things, too, but these felt like they showed that I had a soul the most. I’m happy to say so far that I’ve been delighted at what came out. 🙂
So what have you done to convince yourself you have a soul?
Digital Citizen 
Thanks for the enjoyable article, Tan. It inspires some thoughts in me. I love running (marathon) in an area full of trees (like a park) while listening to music. I always feel fresh and everything around suddenly turn beautiful. It must have helped nurture my soul.