This blog is hard to update, and not because I don’t have things to write about. There are a pile of things for me to write about, but it’s hard to think about where to start and where to go next. Up to this point, I’ve mostly laid my idea out there, but I guess I can always go back and forth between explaining my ideas and discussing other people’s ideas. That will generate more content more quickly!
So, let’s go back to my last post and specifically Donald’s comments about my choice of using the word “spiritual” to describe what he might call “philosophical.” As Donald points out, the word “spiritual” might have a lot of strange connotations that relate to pseudoscience, generic theism, deism, pantheism, panentheism, psychic phenomena, ghosts or any other topic covered in the Time-Life Mysteries of the Unknown series.
But that’s not right. I’m actually not sure why the word “spiritual” has spilled over into those things. Certainly, there is another meaning of the word spirit, such as “evil spirits” or “the holy spirit” or Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky.” There is another meaning of “spirit” which is “alcohol,” but we don’t assume spiritual people are drunks.
Okay, But Why Do You Use “Spiritual”?
I’ve been thinking about this for a week now.
In the first place, I’ve generally used the word “spiritual” because I felt it described me. But does it? That’s a complicated question. I suppose I feel very comfortable being an iconoclast, so let me explain how I feel.
Firstly, “spiritual” by the textbook definition means “of or relating to the spirit, not tangible or material.” I’m intensely interested in the intangible and the immaterial. I’m spiritual.
Further, “spiritual” can mean “relating to the soul.” Now, I want to address this in its own post, but I believe in a “soul.” Again, I love being an iconoclast – my idea of the “soul” is not eternal, nor does it exist in duo with our physical forms. I believe in the soul as a non-existent (in the sense that it exists only as a concept) concept of personhood which is an undeniable and nearly non-nullifiable psychological construct of the human mind. To me, the soul is a transcendental thing not unlike courage or knowledge. It is easy to laugh at dualists and the concept of an eternal soul, but I think it’s a very important concept when we examine modern dilemmas surrounding identity.
So maybe I am using “spiritual” to reclaim it. Or maybe I just think the word is relevant even if the thinking of spirituality is changing or must change to match what we know.
In the end, I really like preserving what “spirituality” is supposed to be doing for us all while ripping out all the nonsensical and unbelievable parts and injecting good old-fashioned reason and rational thinking.
Together, We Can Bring “Spiritual” into the 21st Century
Personally, I don’t think there are a lot of words which describe my thinking on the immaterial and the intangible. Donald suggests that he might use the word “philosophical,” but that is a similarly loaded and difficult word. Philosophy is often called the pursuit of wisdom, or the pursuit of knowledge, or the pursuit of truth, but the very study of that stuff becomes meta when we ask, “What is wisdom, knowledge or truth?”
Really, I don’t mind Donald describing me as philosophical for the same reasons I describe myself as spiritual. I would call myself philosophical and spiritual. The former refers to my examination of questions about the abstract universe, and the latter refers specifically to my feelings about the human experience regarding identity, existential crises and the like. So, I suppose spirituality thereby becomes a subset of philosophy. I don’t mind that.
Many philosophers have talked extensively about the spirit and spirituality – Hegel wrote The Phenomenology of Spirit, which can also be called The Phenomenology of Mind because the German word “Geist” carries both meanings. Am I just talking about the mind when I say spirituality? Possibly. I think the word “mind” carries as many strange intangible connotations as the word “spirit,” but I prefer “spirit” because of the enormous connotation of “identity” that it often carries.
But that’s about it. I’m not overly attached to the word, but it is a good word for me, in my opinion. As is usually the case, I am perfectly happy to change my mind if someone can show me a better word or a clearer term, and a good reason to ditch the word “spiritual.”