A Word for Nurturing Your Spirit

Geist • (ga-e-st) • noun

Definition: ghost, spirit, soul, culture, mind, intelligence, wit, psyche

Origin: German

The German word geist is a simple, yet profound word that speaks to the importance of philosophy, and how human life is shaped by the language we use to define the unknown. Geist has no direct English translation and the profundity of geist derives from its various meanings. 

What is Geist?

Geist means “ghost,” but that is not all that it means. It means “spirit” or “soul,” and this concept of spirit or soul also extends to the living. We all have a geist within us as we go through life. Linguistically in German when you die, your geist remains as your body fades away. You don’t become a ghost, you keep your geist. Thus far, geist still bears a resemblance to English notions of spirit or soul, but as you delve deeper into the word it becomes less and less translatable.

Geist is also applied to facets of life that have no relation to the afterlife, such as one’s mind, intelligence, wit, and psyche. Essentially, one’s personality is also their geist. I love this perspective because now your intelligence, mind, wit, and psyche are less quantifiable, more experiential, and more nuanced. What shapes you as a person both in life and in death is your geist, and the capacity to articulate this concept with one word can radically impact how you see the world.

For example, some time not too long ago, I had a conversation with a friend about religion, the afterlife, and human nature; and this friend asked me if I believe that people have souls. At first, I was taken aback by the question, but the reason they wanted to know was because I argued that people are not inherently good or bad. People are good or bad based on their actions, but not because they have something inside them that predetermines whether they will be good or bad. Many people believe that the presence of a soul or a conscience inclines people to be good and not bad, so this friend wanted to know if I believed in souls.

To answer my friend’s question, I described my fascination with identical twins. Ever since I was a child, I have been curious as to what makes identical twins different. Twins are the closest things to natural genetic clones, yet there is something inexplicable that makes twins have vastly different personalities. Their unexplainable differences, or geist, define their personalities and shape their lives just as much as having an identical twin. 

I considered the unexplainable that lives within all of us as evidence of our soul, and this response surprised my friend. Not because she disagreed, but because my answer traversed the linguistic divide between spirit and mind that English creates and geist bridges. 

In English, one’s mind, intelligence, and personality are prone to commodification because we judge them based on the score they make on an exam or how much money they create. They are both devoid of and distinct from "spirit" in English. In English, you cannot commodify a spirit or soul. In fact, ethnocide and much of capitalism are based around crushing people's souls or culture in order to profit from and commodify the bodies that carried them. With geist, your personality is also your soul, so now it becomes much easier to understand why you need to cherish your personality, and not suppress it so that it conforms to a superficial, spiritless homogeneity. Nurturing your spirit, or geist is no longer primarily reserved to the church or religion, but instead manifests in every aspect of your personality and life.

However, geist is not merely each of our individual spirits or personalities. There can also be a collective geist. The word “zeitgeist,” which means “spirit of the time,” speaks to the collective nature of geist. Geist is also the spirit, soul, or culture of a people; and celebrities and politicians often connect with their audience by speaking to the zeitgeist.

Nurturing Geist

Geist plays an integral role in philosophy because if we can’t nurture our spirit, mind, and intelligence, how will we ever live a good life? As philosophers, we are all shaped by the times in which we live, but the goal of loving wisdom and sharing it with others is to both address the present and speak to the timelessness of geist. In fact, German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s seminal book was titled Phänomenologie des Geistes. In English, it was originally titled “Phenomenology of Mind,” but now it is called “Phenomenology of Spirit.” A philosophical exploration of geist is a way for philosophy to have a meaningful impact on our everyday lives.

As we all are dealing with the COVID-19 crisis, we at SCL think that this is a proper time for all of us to think about our individual and collective geist. We are social distancing so that we can convivir in the future, but America does not linguistically or philosophically embrace the idea of living together. Thus as we stay in our homes and develop inventive ways to cultivate our geist and withstand the soul-crushing reality of COVID-19, we also must think about the collective geist we want to cultivate once this is over.

For this week, please think about how you can nurture your individual and collective geist and share your thoughts with us via email, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter using #TheWord to join the conversation.