Human Soul

"Once, eons distant from this dull and dreary age, there was a glittering city of silver spires, the likes of which we only dream about today. Powerful, glorious, and wealthy beyond imagination, its people thought proudly of themselves as special and extraordinary in one regard: the happiest people who ever lived.

And so it was one day that the city’s Emperor, who was a great and learned man, had a strange and wonderful idea. “Let us”, he said to his closest three advisors, go and see what the father of our civilization thinks of all that we have accomplished”.

They understood at once that he meant Aristotle, the great ancient philosopher. After all, it was upon his ancient and curious idea that this elusive thing called happiness was the right and true end of every life they had built that very shining city. And they, they supposed, hadn’t just found happiness, but perfected.

“My Emperor! You are a genius!”, cried the Engineer. He took out a little device like a stone, whispered into it, and a doorway that seemed to made of light opened. In just a moment, against his very own will, dragged by a force none could see, came a figure. An old man in a white toga, with crows feet around his confused eyes.

The Emperor and his advisors marvelled.

“Where”, asked Aristotle, bewildered, “Am I?”.

“Come”, said the Emperor kindly, after explaining to Aristotle the strange situation he found himself in. “We would like to show you our city, and how our people live. After all, we consider you to be our grandfather. You are the reason for everything here. We are the happiest people who ever lived, and we owe it all to you”.

Aristotle, who now seemed neither shocked, alarmed, nor worried in the slightest, only faintly irritated, looked at them and raised his eyebrows.

They led him first to a neighborhood twinkling with globes of iridescent light, made of every colour of the rainbow, and many colours Aristotle had never seemed to have seen before too. Beneath each globe lay a person, staring up at it, perfectly still, not moving a muscle. And peering closely into the globes, Aristotle saw all kinds of adventures being had, imaginary lives being lived. Here was a woman floating through the sky, and there was a man seducing a beautiful woman.

“You see?”, said the Emperor, his voice brimming with pride“here our people want for nothing. They are fed and clothed and have pleasures beyond imagination. They can live any life they choose in these globes! Any life at all”.

“They can climb the highest mountain”, added the Psychologist.

“Or swim the deepest sea”, said the Scientist.

“Or amass the greatest fortune”, finished the Engineer, proudly.

“I see”, said Aristotle, smiling sadly. “How wonderful it is”. And yet his words seemed to be hollow. But they did not notice.

The Emperor laughed with delight. “I knew”, he said, encouraged, “that you would approve! Now come. We are not finished yet”.

They led him next to a gleaming silver table overflowing with strange, fragrant fruit, and flasks of sparkling liquids.

“Please”, said the Emperor, magnanimously. “Have a drink. It is our pleasure!”.

Aristotle surveyed the flasks, picked up one shimmering with a radiant golden liquid, and took a sip.

“A good choice”, the Engineer remarked to the Psychologist, who nodded sagely, pursing his lips.

“It’s like no wine you’ve ever had, is it? It is made of stars”, said the Scientist, proudly.

“It’s finer, and more delicious, isn’t it?”, asked the Engineer, eagerly.

Aristotle put down the flask carefully, frowned for a moment, went silent for a moment, and then said, carefully, “It is a very fine drink. I never imagined such delicacy and sweetness. The stars themselves!”

“Aha!”, cried the Emperor, “you see? Now our people drink this every day. That is what we call it. We are the happiest people who have ever lived!”

“Now come”, said the Scientist, “we have one final marvel to show you”.

The sun had fallen. They led him to the top a small hill. There, looking down, he could see a cemetery, stippled with weather beaten headstones, gleaming softly in the full moonlight. And just then, alook of knowing, of sadness, seemed to cross Aristotle’s weary eyes for just an instant.

“Do you know where we stand”, asked the Scientist, proudly.

Although he knew precisely where, Aristotle shook his head, so as not to deny them this moment.

“That”, said the Emperor, in a somber tone, quietly, “is the cemetery. The Last Cemetery. You see, our people do not die. We have conquered death.”

“And without the fear of death”, added the Psychologist, “What reason is there for unhappiness in life? All our fears and anxieties and worries have disappeared! We have uprooted the very soil in which unhappiness grew!”

“And that”, concluded the Emperor, “is really why we are the happiest people who have ever lived”.

Aristotle was quiet for a long moment. He stared intently at the cemetery, the headstones, and there, in the moonlight, it was as if he saw ghosts who lived there still, that the rest of them could not see.

And at last, he said, “You are grand and wonderful people. It’s true. Never did I suppose I would witness such marvels. I bid you send me home now”.

But his voice was as hollow as a canyon.

Troubled, the Emperor frowned.

They dined together that night, after Aristotle had rested, insisting on a meal together before he left, at least, and made small talk about life, ancient and modern, the strange trip, the improbability of it all.

“Come now”, asked the Emperor, at last, unable to hold himself back any longer, “Tell us. Have we not fulfilled your promise? Are we not exactly what you said people should be?”

“Are you not proud to call us your children?”, asked the Engineer.

“Yes, haven’t we become exactly what you wanted? Full of happiness and virtue and grace? Are we not perfect — truly perfect — with happiness?”, asked the Psychologist, his eyes marvelling at the thought of it all.

A battle seemed to erupt in Aristotle then, which he could not hide, though he wanted to. He frowned, his brow furrowed, and his mind, the mind that had changed history so many times, seemed to wrestle with a question that his heart did not seem to want to answer.

At last, he said, quietly, sighing. “I am very sorry. But I will tell you the truth. You do not even know what happiness really is”.

The Emperor’s face grew cloudy. He could not believe what he was hearing.

“But how — “, asked the Psychologist, puzzled.

“What you showed me first”, said Aristotle gently, “was not happiness. It was just ataraxia. The avoidance of pain, the relief of discomfort.

The people under the globes, after all, can merely turn them off the moment that they are about to fall off the mountain, or drown in the sea, can they not?”, he demanded. “Ataraxia is therefore just numbness, not genuine happiness. There is no real experience, no life, in it. Not a moment of genuine love or meaning, not an instant worth an instant.”

The Engineer frowned. The Psychologist winced. The Emperor’s face went from cloudy to stormy. But no one said a word.

“But how can that be!”, cried the Engineer, finally. “They are living! Grander lives in the globes than they ever could out — “

“We will come to that”, Aristotle interjected, “What you showed me second was uglier still. That was merely aponia. The highest pleasure. But happiness is not a finer cup of wine. Not even of wine made of the stars. People are not just tongues and teeth. That is just satisfaction, isn’t it? And what is satisfied can just as easily be dissastfied, and therefore it is not genuine happiness, which is a change of something in us”

“But then what is — “, asked the Economist, anger flashing in his eyes.

“We are coming to that”, said Aristotle, even more gently. “Yet what you showed me last was the worst, the ugliest, of all. The Last Cemetery!”, now his voice grew emphatic, though it was still quiet.

“How”, hissed the Emperor, “can you say that life without death is not the beginning of happiness?”

“Happiness”, replied Aristotle, “needs death. Just as the ocean needs the rain.

Happiness is not the absence of suffering, of pain, of hurt. That has been your true mistake all along.”

“Then what — “, interjected the Engineer again, on the edge of a shout.

Aristotle looked at them, his eyes seeming to see through the eons, and said quietly, “Perfection is not happiness. There is no such thing as perfect happiness.

Happiness is seeing the beauty even in your suffering. That is the root of all virtue. Should I see beauty in your suffering, then I love you. Should you see beauty in my suffering, then you love me, too. Only then am I capable of empathy, of grace, of rebellion, of courage.”

“You are mad!”, cried the Psychologist. “Beauty in suffering? But that will only produce more suffering!”

“You have not understood me at all”, said Aristotle, smiling sadly. “Have you? If I see beauty in your suffering, that does not mean I do not see greater, vaster beauty yet in you. It means that I see the beginning of beauty there. Right there. In your broken heart. That is the soil of virtue. The broken heart of all humankind.”

They fell silent. It was as if their minds had stopped and turned backwards upon themselves, just as they had done to time itself, when they took Aristotle from it.

“Happiness lives in the human soul”, continued Aristotle, quietly, as if here teaching a class of hazy minds now. “not the mind, nor the stomach, nor the limbs. So it cannot be ataraxia or aponia. And so it is the nourishing of the soul. What nourishes the soul? Not erasing a life’s suffering. But redeeming a life’s suffering. Then a soul is free. Then and only then is true happiness, eudaimonia, possible.”

“But what is the difference! Between all these? Aponia, Ataraxia, Eudaimonia?! We do not understand!”, cried the Scientist, bewildered, frustrated, angry.

“You live forever”, replied Aristotle, looking into his wine, as if he saw the past in the future, and the future in the past. “in infinite pleasure. But that is just another prison, isn’t it? You would rather spend your eternal lives under globes of light drinking wine made of stars than — ”

“Than what?”, roared the Emperor, enraged. “What more is there!”, he demanded.

“Than”, replied Aristotle, this time his voice so quiet it seemed to float on the breeze, “experiencing the greatest truth of all.

Happiness is just one soul seeing itself in another. And all that you have ever done has been done so that you do not have to see one another.

That is what the globes and wine are really for. To keep you from having to ever see one another.

A human soul is just like a star. It is not there to be drunk, consumed, had. It is there to be seen in all its beauty and truth and grace. Then it shines. That is all happiness has ever been.

Therefore you are not happy. You are not unhappy. You are something else. You are blind.”

The truth of his words seemed to pierce them in a place they had never been pierced before. In the heart of the soul, the soul of the heart. All they had sought was his approval, his encouragement, the love of a father for a child. But somehow, all that they had gotten was truth. And what was that worth?

“Send him back. To the time of misery and famine he came from!”, snarled the Emperor, taught with rage, his blood boiling, bitterness curdling in him.

Aristotle smiled and stared into his wine, taking a last long sip.

The Engineer, his face red with shame, took out his stone. The Scientist, afraid of the Emperor’s rage, waved a wand and erased every last trace of it all from Aristotle’s mind.

And yet, somehow, as Aristotle returned to his simple life of wine made of soil, not stars, he seemed to remember it all, without having to remember it at all."

Umair Haque, May 2017