Im not a religious person. At most (best?), Im agnostic. Im probably mostly atheist when it really comes down to it. So usually, although I reference souls often, I dont really believe in them.
However, obviously, just like we feel love in our heartsdespite the heart just being an organ that pumps blood and not a depository of feelings, we do have an essence to usto our very beingsouls. So I guess, IMHO anyway, our souls are our personalitiesour psychological make- up
So I mention all this because I watched an interesting movie starring the great Paul Giamatti called Cold Souls. In it, he plays himself, or at least an actor by the name of Paul Giamatti, who feels over burdened lately and cant seem to get a grip on his newest stage role. He reads an article about how people are putting their souls in storage to sort of free themselves of the pressures of their lives. Despite thinking its kind of insane, he goes through with it. When its done he feels empty & hollow and not like himself. I guess its an even more extreme premise than that of the great movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but kind of similar.
Obviously theres a lot more to the movie, but what Im getting at is this. Would you want to store away your soul? We carry so much weight on our shoulders. Theres so much life we absorb on a daily basis. What if you could quickly just have that taken out and put away? Would you want to?
The easy, almost knee-jerk answer is, Hell yes! But, would you still be you if you did so? When you really think about it, the answer seems to be, No. As much of a heavy burden as your soul may be, its a huge part of who you are. Maybe even ALL of who you are. So even for mesomebody who seems to spend all of his time complaining about his life (and lack there-of), the answer would be no. I wouldnt do it.
So, would you?
However, obviously, just like we feel love in our heartsdespite the heart just being an organ that pumps blood and not a depository of feelings, we do have an essence to usto our very beingsouls. So I guess, IMHO anyway, our souls are our personalitiesour psychological make- up
So I mention all this because I watched an interesting movie starring the great Paul Giamatti called Cold Souls. In it, he plays himself, or at least an actor by the name of Paul Giamatti, who feels over burdened lately and cant seem to get a grip on his newest stage role. He reads an article about how people are putting their souls in storage to sort of free themselves of the pressures of their lives. Despite thinking its kind of insane, he goes through with it. When its done he feels empty & hollow and not like himself. I guess its an even more extreme premise than that of the great movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but kind of similar.
Obviously theres a lot more to the movie, but what Im getting at is this. Would you want to store away your soul? We carry so much weight on our shoulders. Theres so much life we absorb on a daily basis. What if you could quickly just have that taken out and put away? Would you want to?
The easy, almost knee-jerk answer is, Hell yes! But, would you still be you if you did so? When you really think about it, the answer seems to be, No. As much of a heavy burden as your soul may be, its a huge part of who you are. Maybe even ALL of who you are. So even for mesomebody who seems to spend all of his time complaining about his life (and lack there-of), the answer would be no. I wouldnt do it.
So, would you?
moniemuffins:
Actualy, my knee jerk reaction was to say "Hell No!". I imagine my soul to really be the stored memory of my brain synapse- and BTW I explain my ideals as similar to yours except I would throw in a little existencialism - The "soul" (which I think is widely mis interperated in the biblical sense but thats a whole new can of worms) is just stored data from your brain synapse that chronicals experience and your bodies reaction to experiences. That's why there is such a huge correlation between mind and body. They are the same thing, your minds just the part of your body that holds all the data of how to respond - making up your mind and feeling etc.. I imagine with out your soul or your record of experiences you would not know how you feel or how you are supposed to feel about any given subject or situation. And worse yet if the brain synapse developed as you did in the womb and was the tool that is used to "remember" how to keep the body functioning from day to day then maybe we couldn't live with out it. So, no, I wouldn't give up my soul unless I had it backed up on an external hard drive some place. 
moniemuffins:
Sorry it was soooo long. I try to make sense in as few words as possible but I rarely succeed.