Poem: The 21-gram Soul

What if your soul was matter — and it weighed?

The 21-gram experiment refers to a pseudoscientific study published in 1907 by Duncan MacDougall, a physician from Haverhill, Massachusetts. MacDougall hypothesized that souls have physical weight, and attempted to measure the mass lost by a human when the soul departed the body. MacDougall attempted to measure the mass change of six patients at the moment of death. One of the six subjects lost three-quarters of an ounce (21.3 grams). (Wiki)

It is funny. Nobody bothers about their soul on a regular day filled with work and sleep. Those who think about their souls are lost somewhere, figuring out souls as a third person, rather than thinking about themselves. Most philosophers and religions point to souls as the ‘self’ or the ‘non-corporal identity’ of a human body. Let us understand the physics of the soul.

Poem: The 21-Gram Soul

If my weight is just 21 grams
My non-corporal identity
That covers all of these —
An ego larger than a whale
Secrets stashed in a pandora’s box
My bucket list running into miles
Regrets weighing like a ton of bricks
Memories that I cherish and hold on to
Dreams still bright as day light
And I am supposed to travel light
Between the realms of life and death
I am deemed, forever and eternal
And still say that I carry dead weight
Of wishes and regrets
Of memories and secrets
The 21 grams is too much
I think … I should go on a diet.
~Ashok Subramanian © 2024