The Soul Tank--A Writer's Best Friend

Status: Bleary-eyed but chugging

What's playing on the iPod: THROUGH GLASS by Stone Sour

Everybody has a soul tank.

At the present, mine is brimming like a mug of dark roast coffee with no room for cream. The question I'm sure you're asking is: What the heck is a soul tank? And why should I give a rat's furry butt?

Easy enough. Allow me to begin by offering an example. Today I got some bad news, bordering on tragic. I won't bore you with the details, but instead of looking for my handy tanto (Japanese shortsword) to commit seppaku with, I did what I always do when I'm emotional. I wrote. Not only did I write, but I wrote sixteen pages of nearly flawless brilliance, quite the contrast from the clump of gerbil niblets I pumped out yesterday. The trick was simple--the settings of my soul tank.

The soul tank is a crossroads of the heart and mind, the vessel within us where we take that volatile, flammable and concentrated emotion and convert it. The question is...convert it into what?

Most people's soul tanks are set to default. Some shop, some eat, and some sing, while others spontaneously combust taking as many people with them as they can. It could be used to catapault the Space Shuttle into orbit, neglected and allowed to dissipate, or abused to leave a Nagasaki-sized crater in our souls and beyond. I myself am a big fan of the exosphere so my settings are on growth, learning, and of course creation via my own writing.

Some of the most touching songs I've ever heard were written by artists mortally wounded by heartbreak or by the elation of true love that transcends the normal spectrum of experience.

I sure hope I'm not sounding preachy, it's just a little visual I came up with to help keep me all woo-sah when the need arises. I figured that if everybody did a little rummaging within themselves, found the dials and set them to what they wanted them to be, the world would be less fugeize. And that's always a good thing, right?

What are your settings?