Pixar: Soul

Joe Gardner waits his whole life for one big gig. The day he gets it, he falls into a manhole — and lands where souls get ready for Earth. There he meets 22, a soul who has dodged being born for centuries. Mother Teresa, Lincoln, Jung, Muhammad Ali and Copernicus all tried to inspire her. Nothing lit the spark.

With Soul, Pixar got closer to the truth. In the movie, new souls are bluish, translucent, much alike. They need a “spark” to go to Earth. But in the early concept art on Pixar’s site, the souls shine in every color of the rainbow. Each one its own color.

That’s a much better picture of reality. Your true colors. Your soul is a mix of colors. Or better yet — notes. Like music. Nobody has to explain music: kids hear it and start dancing. If God existed, he’d be something like that. Freediving is an underwater dance to the music of your soul. Everyone has their own melody.

The musical theme runs through the movie itself: the world of souls sounds electronic, Earth sounds like jazz. That music won the film an Oscar.

And the spark itself? Joe is sure his is jazz. 22 hunts for hers in callings and grand missions. In the end it shows up as a slice of pizza, a maple seed spinning down onto a palm. The spark is a taste for living. Meaning works the same way: you build it yourself — you author each of your days. You are life that wants to live itself.

What music plays inside you?

And if the music is already playing, waiting makes no sense. Which brings up a strange question: do we need hope at all?