Free Souls
There are some you meet in life who you recognize as at home in this world. And you say to yourself - "There goes a man!"
The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them. ~Charles Bukowski
Who have you met in your life that you’d consider a “free soul”? Who made you say like Bsowell on meeting Pascal Paoli - “There goes a man!”? Someone larger than life and whose energy you feel viscerally, it truthfully burning into your very being?
We all recognize the free soul when we meet them or are in their presence. There is a calm fearlessness, a no nervousness, a sense that they are at home in the world. Comfortable in their skin, like most of us aren’t.
“It is by an extreme capacity for defiance that certain unusual people who have everything to hope and everything to fear from one another, will always recognize one another.”— Andre Breton,“Nadja”
In my life, I always admired Anthony Quinn. He was just a colossus. On the screen, his bombastic nature and freedom captivated all who watched. Especially as Zorba the Greek but also as Bombolini, the town drunk in The Secret of Santa Vittoria. I actually met him (just a nod and said hello) and could feel his energy as we sat beside him (72 years old) with his young wife and newborn baby - in a small Yorkville, Toronto Italian restaurant, late one evening. Now, there goes a man! I thought.
But free souls aren’t just Hollywood stars and famous rock stars. They also are among us, they are out there if you just look. I’ve met my share and the essential formula is really that they live by their own commands and desires. They don’t blow where the wind goes but rather, where they wish to go. In command of their own ship. They don’t compromise with life, their life but rather live naturally, an “amor fati”, Nietzsche’s lover of fate.
I recently watched this documentary about a shepherd, Samucha, in the mountains of Georgia. I thought to myself again - “There goes a man!”. Highly recommend a watch and you’ll be energized by this simple man and his force of nature.
I do think we are losing many of our “free souls” in the modern age we live. Culture is more strict, more imposing. We can’t escape that painter’s brush and the call of money, advertising, the pressures imposed to conform and concede. It’s sad.
I do want to spend the rest of my days looking for and meeting more - free souls!
Yet there is ONE who holds all this falling in his head, gently and without end.
- Rilke
This Man
It’s the one
you’ve never met
that keeps you going.
Each trip to the mall
Each baseball game or dinner party
Each film you watch
You look for him or her
But they’re never there.
The one
that is truly alive
and
looking up at you,
flashes eyes
like those of a wolf
scanning the horizon
on a midwinter's day.
I’ve looked
in faraway cities
on faraway streets.
He’s not out there.
Each time I look
into the mirror,
I expect to see him
appear behind me
or even in me
but he never does.
Soon it will be
too late for me.
My life filled with
books, lies, puss
cars, buses, barber shops
aches, angst and ardor
but never this man
that kept me going.
Thanks. We need these precious souls. I keep on with my search ...
Excellent!