The Virtual Soul

As much of my work indicates, I’ve long been intrigued by the concept of the soul. The majority of people discuss the soul as that lasting part of each of us that continues to exist after we die. In the beliefs most commonly presented, these entities depart our dying bodies to subsequently spend eternity doing things such as inhabiting palaces in the sky, lounging with virgins, or standing in a fieryinferno. In other words, in the view of most, after death our souls apparently have human-like lives somewhere else, and those lives are either much better or much worse than the ones we currently possess. Though I don’t consider this likely, I’m at a loss to suggest an alternative theory for where a soul might go or what it might do once it leaves its corporeal prison. In any event, I’m much more interested in what the soul is than in its destination. If it is the “essence” of who we are, do we not emit this at every moment of our waking lives? If it is that kernel of us that is true, would it not show itself when we are at our least pretentious, off our guard, and lowering the barriers that surround us?

I have called the words I add to my website and this blog my “virtual soul” for a couple of reasons, but largely because I want this space to become a location where I reveal my thoughts and share those ideas that are closest to the center of my being. As a writer, this should always be my aspiration. However, I do not expect this to be easy. Millions of people have set out to be spiritual, but the only thing most become is religious.

There is an additional soul-like element to this site that I feel obliged to point out, and that is in its potential existence beyond my own. I am always fascinated, in a creepy, voyeuristic kind of way, by those online newspaper articles that quote a suspect or a victim’s website or MySpace page, or those people who post on a dead friend’s Facebook wall. There is something potentially eternal about our website personas that previous generations never experienced. Certainly, holding the journal of a deceased ancestor in one’s hands and feeling the same pages he or she touched a century ago or longer has the potential to make one feel connected to the dead. Yet, the immediacy and completeness of a website with photos and videos and audio tracks can make the departed seem barely gone.

In fact, with artificial intelligence, the possibility exists for us to program our personalities into our websites, offering up video and audio responses to anticipated questions like Jor-El in the Superman movies. (In the last movie incarnation of this character, SUPERMAN RETURNS, Marlon Brando’s image and voice, provided in the earlier movies as that of Superman’s dead father, are used, though Brando had been dead for several years, as an ironic display of this phenomenon.) We are quickly becoming capable of electronically living forever, at least to those who would view and talk with us. But, does that not return us to the issue of the soul? Isn’t the soul everything that can’t be programmed, every response that can’t be predicted or scripted? Or, is it all that we pour out into this world while we are here, hoping that the flailing about we call our lives has done more than pass through this world's stagnant air? I suppose we’ll all find out.

So ... you like Vampires

As a reader, I enjoy an innovative and especially "nuanced" vampire tale: the novels of Anne Rice or Laurell K. Hamilton come to mind, especially their early work. But, as a writer, I don't "do" vampires. I don't find them particularly believable, so I can't develop them as life-like characters. I guess I like to have my fantasy grounded on this planet. Still, I understand their attraction, and my goal has been to tap into the source of their appeal without trying to copy their "undead" characteristics.

The Desidaria in my novels were created partially as a "not-another-vampire" effort and partially as the result of my own study of the original Gothic novels, the eighteenth-century ones of Walpole, Maturin, Radcliffe and, above all, Lewis. Having been introduced to these works at the same time as I was discovering psychoanalytic theory, I became fascinated with the philosophical core of the historic Gothic, something often lost in today's more graphic, but often less thoughtful efforts. I mean, it's one thing to believe that vampires and many of these clearly troubled souls are "hot," but quite another to understand why we are drawn to them in spite of their obvious shortcomings and occasionally evil ways.

In fact, there is something about the "outsider" nature of the villians developed in these books that forms the heart of our attraction to them. They connect with our pleasure and pain in a way that is more experienced than explained.

It is with this unexplainable connection to our deepest desires in mind that I created the Desidaria, beings evolved beyond humans in their ability to understand and even touch the soul. With this understanding, the Desidaria draw an energy from the universe that provides them with not only exceptional strength, but also a seductive quality that gives them a unique power over most of humankind. There are some, of course, who resist them and see them as witches or demons.

Check out my other thoughts at http://www.larryhamm.com/.