The Science of the Soul

Raspberries

I ate them one by one, captivated by their beautiful jewel-like color, their fresh flowery smell, their bumpy texture, and the explosion of sweetness when I bit into them. We experience a world transformed by imagination and brewed in sensation.

These days, our five senses are blunted by sunglasses, deodorant, and shoes that cushion the sensation of gravel—and they’re glutted with high-fructose corn syrup and elevator music.

All Of A Sudden

I turned a corner, and instantly, all five senses seemed to sharpen. It was as if every knob in my brain had suddenly been dialed to its maximum setting of awareness. Never before had I experienced the world with such intensity—it was extraordinary. For so long, I realized that I had been taking it all for granted—the colors, the sounds, the feel of everything around me.

The experience is now; it's here, and it's also past, never to be repeated. In that moment, I awakened to a profound truth. I had one body, and I wouldn't have it forever.

Was I appreciating my body and its powers? Was I savoring each day of my life as it unfolded? Was I paying attention to the people I loved?

I have been studying human nature and reflecting on how we can live more fulfilled lives—the science of the soul. One of my most important realizations was that we can live a fulfilled life only on the foundation of self-knowledge. The more my life reflected my temperament, values, and interests, the happier I became, so I spent a lot of time trying to know myself better.

Despite all these efforts to "know thyself," I noticed a pattern of seeming to get stuck in my head, d-i-s-c-o-n-n-e-c-t-e-d from the world and other people, and even from myself. I needed to connect with my five senses. I had been treating my body like the car my brain was driving around town, but my body wasn’t just a vehicle for my soul, to be overlooked when it wasn’t breaking down. My body — through my senses — was my essential connection to the world and other people.

Reality

I wasn’t sleepwalking through my days. I spent hours reading, writing, and talking to people. I kept lists, made plans, and set goals. I tracked the number of steps I took. I existed in a constant process of self-examination: How do I grow into the person I think I could become? But while I valued the intensity, productivity, and structure of my life, I could be honest with myself and see that I was allowing the sensations of my life to slip away unobserved. If I focused on the experience of my senses, what could I discover?

I want to appreciate the moments of my life more fully. I want to get out of my head and into my life. I want to deepen my knowledge of the world, of other people—and of myself.

Walking

While I walk, I feel intense vitality because I pay close attention to the sensations streaming through me. Through my desire to operationalize my life, I have grown serious and impatient, too eager to hurry back to my desk or my to-do list. I can become so preoccupied with my plans and lists that I forget to pay attention to what is really happening around me. I could be walking on the beach but hardly see the ocean because I was so immersed in my own head.

I choose to see, hear, smell, taste, and touch the world around me so that instead of staying in my head, I can live more fully in my body. I can relish the sensations of my body for their own sake, and I can use the intensity and emotional power of my sensations to connect with others. If I am able to do this out in nature, I can then learn the principles to apply in my day-to-day moments while I am immersed in work.

Fragility of Life

Blink. And it’s gone. Despite this weighty truth, I feel a soaring excitement about the transience of everything around me. Research shows that the design of spaces influences our thinking. High ceilings stimulate expansive and abstract thoughts; symmetry pleases our sense of balance and vitality; spaces rich with symbols, layers of meaning and interesting designs help us to think.

See life through all 5 senses.

Neuroscience - The Power of My Senses

Sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Our sensory organs—eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin—are connected to the brain through nerves that transmit electrochemical messages. These organs and the brain work together to present the world to us.

• Sensation is the stimulation of a sensory organ (a tongue tasting salt)

• Perception is the integration of sensations in the brain.

• Proprioception gives us our sense of the position of parts of the body.

• Equilibrioception allows us to maintain our balance and body posture as we sit, stand, run, ride a bike, etc.

• Interoception gives us the ability to note and interpret sensations coming from within our own bodies.

The list continues, and while every sense contributes to our experience, it is fascinating in its own right that these more subtle senses run in the background.

The Brain

The brain lives a quiet life, encased in bone and floating in cerebrospinal fluid. It’s about 73% water and accounts for 2% of body weight, yet it consumes about 20% of all energy we consume. While my eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin send their messages along my nervous system, by the time that information reaches my consciousness, those senses provide my experience of the world. As we move through the world, our brains make constant adjustments to what we perceive. When information is incomplete, our brains make an educated guess about what we’ve seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched.