Entry 50: The Soul

Dickinson’s “The Soul selects her own Society” is about making choices and the instinct that leads each one of us to prefer certain things and cherish some people about others. Dickinson implies that this instinct is not of the rational mind, but rather comes from the spiritual part of us called the soul. How do you think most people select their friends—with their minds (thoughts), with their soul (feelings), or with a combination of the two? Or is there some other answer? What about you? How do you select your friends? Give examples.

• Most people select friends with a combination of both the mind and the soul. How? When people are selecting friends with their mind, they are at the same time observing and evaluating and a person's doings, actions, behaviors, point of views, morals, and attitude towards certain things. People decide whether the other person is doing something wrong or right, and then decide whether the person is worthy or being their friend or not. When a person is using the soul to identify and decide if a person is worth being a friend or not, he or she usually use their initial feelings about the person. This makes first impressions extremely important, because one's first impression is what gives other people feelings - whether the feelings are comfortable or uncomfortable.
• I do the same to select my own friends. But, I am basically friends with almost everyone. There are only certain cases when I feel extremely uncomfortable with a person or when I dislike a person's attributes and characteristics so much that I wouldn't want to be friends with them. When there are actually these cases, I would try and stay as far away from these people as possible, so I don't necessarily break off all my ties with them, just in case I ever have to interact or work with them.