While We Are Laughing

John Keats expressed his feelings and thoughts profoundly and deeply to his family and friends. Each idea that presented itself was expounded upon for further clarity to the reader. As I read each letter there were phrases that I highlighted because of their depth of meaning.

In his letter to George and Georgiana Keats titled "The Vale of Soul-Making," he shared his thoughts on how an individual becomes a soul. The soul-making begins as a seed planted from experiences of life (and death). He began his letter letting them know about a dear friend's father and the expected passing and then states:

While we are laughing the seed of some trouble is put into the wide arable land of events - while we are laughing it sprouts, [it] grows and suddenly bears a poison fruit which we must pluck.

Life is full of unmanicured landscapes full of beautiful and wild flora and fauna. Some of these experiences are benign and others are deadly. It's from these experiences that Keats states that we mature from innocence to full knowledge:

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.

Life and Death are those beginning and end moments that shape us and move us. Speaking about death, Keats references a phrase, often used to describe the experience of the death of another and their passing to the next life, "a vale of tears." In response to this phrase, he offers a new phrase: "The vale of Soul-making." He states that earth is the "vale of Soul-making."

The reason the earth was created was for mankind to have experiences so that we could mature from an intelligence to a soul. Maturing into a soul would allow us to become immortal like God:

Then you will find out the use of the world (I am speaking now in the highest terms of human nature admitting it to be immortal which I will here take for granted for the purpose of showing a thought which has struck me concerning it) I say "soul making" Soul as distinguished from an Intelligence -- There may be intelligences or sparks of the divinity in millions -- but they are not Souls till they acquire identities, till each one is personally itself. Intelligences are atoms of perception -- they know and they see and they are pure, in short they are God.

His letter continues by explaining more about his thoughts on the purpose of this earthly life. We will have experiences that will bring joy and happiness. We will experience pain and sorrow. Some of these experiences will be of our own making, however, there will be many more that are completely out of our control. These experiences will have an impact on us. We have the opportunity to learn from these experiences. We will make choices because of these experiences. Our understanding and knowledge will increase.

At the end of his letter Keats shares how he came to this understanding of soul-making:

I began by seeing how man was formed by circumstances - and what are circumstances? - but touchstones of his heart? - And what are touchstones? - but provings of his heart? - and what are provings of his heart but fortifiers or alterers of his nature? And what is his altered nature but his soul? - and what was his soul before it came into the world and had these provings and alterations and perfectionings? - An intelligences - without Identity - and how is this Identity to be made? Through the medium of the Heart? And how is the heart to become this Medium but in a world of Circumstances?

We are imperfect and lacking without our experiences. We become whole by uniting body and intelligence matured through experience. This world is a training ground for Souls.