Reclaiming Dominion
" I am the captain of my soul."
“Dominion” in Christian theology refers to an externalization. That is, the implementation of biblical ideals throughout daily life. “Soul,” however, and its presumable equivalents in other languages is rife in pre-Christian and non-Christian idea sets, as for example in written Chinese 靈魂 (ling2hun2).
But it is the internalized dominion of which I write. One can not take control of what is undiscovered. Yet even a despiser of religions, Christopher Hitchens, conceded to the presence (or at least, the non-absence) of a human soul:
I don't think the soul is immortal, or at least not immortal in individuals, but it may be immortal as an aspect of the human personality because when I talk about what literature nourishes, it would be silly of me or reductionist to say that it nourishes the brain.
[I have been unable to reference the source of this quote. However, having read most of his writings and listened to perhaps 50 hours of his talks, the language sounds and feels like his.]
The difficulty lies in what this soul consists in and how one might recognize it when the only guide knowing it is oneself — gurus notwithstanding, who can only truly know of their own to relate to disciples, who must find it on their own. The rational mind can not fathom it because ratiocination is a limitation, even to superlatively brilliant razor-sharp wits, such as that which Christopher Hitchens possessed and flaunted.
But it really isn’t all that difficult. Dominion over the soul is precisely what it says it is. Its meaning is plain and readily apparent from its words. It must be understood in and of itself, for itself, by itself, within oneself. It’s yours, you own it. What “it” is, is for you, for me, to discover. One’s own edification is the point, as far as I have learned to understand it in six decades of trodding the soil, of human existence.
The best exegesis I have discovered is poetic: William Henley’s Invictus (though not titled as such by the poet, but by a later compiler of his poetry). The poem speaks for itself. One need not know that Henley wrote it not long after losing a leg — the poem stands on its own, so to speak.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
