“For that is what is lost in so many lives, and what must be recovered: a sense of personal calling, that there is a reason I am alive. … The feelings that there is a reason my unique person is here and that there are things I must attend to beyond the daily round and that give the daily round its reason, feelings that the world somehow wants me to be here, that I am answerable to an innate image, which I am filling out in my biography.” 

The Soul’s Code, James Hillman, 1996 (p4)

Why does a soul choose his lot when he begins his journey to this world? There has to be a purpose for the soul to elect all the circumstances – his parents, his race, and the others before his incarnation on Earth, the necessity to fulfill. 

‘Each person enters the world called,’ states James Hillman. 

‘You didn’t come to this world empty,’ says Hillman. Developing the idea from Plato’s Myth of Er at the end of his most well-known work, the Republic, Hillman argues that each soul brought with him a sense of calling, an innate image, the essential mystery at the heart of each human life that is to be fulfilled. It may be postponed, avoided, or intermittently missed, but eventually, it will make it. 

Picasso probably knew when he said ‘I don’t develop; I am.,’  that a person’s life is not a process or a development. Rather, he is the essential image that develops throughout your life. For Picasso, we might say that ‘his image’ was his genius or gift that was given upon his birth. 

This image, I believe, lies at the heart of you, waiting for your recognition. Or probably you have already heard the pull of the strings – you have heard your calling or found your fate. 

I have been reading books intensively for more than a decade. When I was deeply depressed during my corporate life thinking I had no reason to be alive and had to decide to leave a certain country and a seemingly good job, what I heard from inside was ‘READ BOOKS! NOT A FEW BUT MANY!’ Even without knowing why, I was proclaiming innocently to my friend, ‘I am going to write a book in ten years.’

My image, ‘daimon’ as Hillman argues, made its presence known to me then through deep anxiety and depression. And now I believe I am following my path. 

What is your image? How is your calling making its presence known to you? Do you hear during your daily rounds? Have you noticed? What makes you feel like dancing and saying I have a reason to be alive?  I would like to hear your stories!

Jay