You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it – tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest – if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself – you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say, “Here at last is the thing I was made for.” We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.
— C.S. Lewis, from The Problem of Pain (HarperOne, May 28, 2009)
Quote: Thank you The Hammock Papers
Live & Learn 
yes
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‘The secret signature of the soul” – magnificent…
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What genius this Man.
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What a(bother) magnificent post this is!
I will never truly know you Dave. You come across to me as a totally informed guy, electronic gadgets-wired-in, obsessed with controlling every aspect of your life, health, extremely gifted in many ways, rather unsentimental, and then, from time to time you send out citations like the one above and I think: Do I know that man? Or when you were swarming like a school kid about Wally, or some Mary Oliver, etc….. who‘s THAT then?
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Laughing. And therein lay the contradiction and swirling internal chaos!
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And, thank you Kiki.
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“If we lose it, we lose all!”
Great way to start the week.
Thank you for sharing.
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Yes!!!
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Ah, the elusive “it”…
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Ah yes…
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Ahhh…. Soul sighing. Let me lose it all so I know only it. ❤
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Yes!
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This is so true. We know it when we see it, or happen upon it.
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Right! And how he’s able to explain it. Genius!
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Yes, very well done!
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Brilliant man.
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He was.
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‘The secret signature of the soul” – magnificent… yes, this is great. Thank you dear David, Love, nia
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Agree! And your word Magnificent captures it!
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