22's jazzing continues through the next stage of Joe's purgatory - an encounter with his mother who has constantly urged her son to abandon his musical ambitions in favor of steady employment with pension and health care.
Still encased in Joe's body and tentatively coached by Mr. Mittens, 22 boldly responds on Joe's behalf, "Mom, I'm just afraid that if I died today, then my life would have amounted to nothing."
That particular jazz riff melts Mrs. Gardner's heart. In tears, she embraces her son and tells him how proud she is of him. She adds that his deceased father would have been proud too. She even gives Joe his dad's handsome wool suit to wear at the anticipated performance that evening. (Joe's father too had been a musician dependent for support on his wife's real job as a seamstress. No wonder she was worried about Joe.)
Paradiso
Finally, Joe arrives at the Half Note Jazz Club. By now, with the help of Captain Moonwind and a brief return to the Great Before, the difference between Joe and 22 has been completely overcome. Joe's come to realize that 22 is the same as his own unappropriated unborn soul.
Whole at last, Joe is now ready for his beatific vision. Imagining that it will happen on the Half-Note's stage, Joe persuades Dorothea Williams to rehire him despite his late arrival at the jazz club. Reluctantly, she acquiesces.
However, all doubts vanish as Joe gives the performance of his life thrilling everyone present including his mother and Ms. Williams herself. Amid the applause, Joe's mother is heard shouting proudly, "That's my son!"
Nonetheless in the aftermath, Joe remains strangely detached. In effect, he wonders aloud, "Is that all there is? I've been waiting for this my entire life. I thought it would be different."
The diva explains, "You've been like a fish discontent with his water habitat because he's been searching for the ocean. You've had what you've been looking for all your life. It's what you live in, move in and where you have your being."
With that, Joe's penny finally drops. Now his life flashes before him summarized in the symbolic trinkets that awakened the soul of # 22:
- A Metro pass
- A pizza crust
- A piece of a bagel whose other half had been thrown into the tip basket of that subway musician
- The lollypop Dez the barber shared during the session in his "magic chair"
- A spool of blue thread that Joe's mother used to refashion his father's wool suit
- A seed from a maple tree brought by a gentle breeze into Joe's waiting hand
Yes, Dorothea's version of Beatrice was right: Joe's had everything he's needed right from the beginning - in his father's sharing his passion for jazz, in fireworks over New York City, in the heat blowing from city street grates, in the taste of pecan pie, in the star filled sky . . .
So have we all.
Conclusion
Such "morals of the story" might strike some as typically Hollywood - trite truisms generated algorithmically by pretentious but ultimately soulless corporations interested only in easy pandering to the peasant gallery. However, conclusions of this sort overlook the fact that most preaching and motivational talks contain similar messages. Fact is: we need the reminders.
Nonetheless, the morals of "Soul" go far beyond what's already been itemized. A more comprehensive catalog might include the following.
- Life on planet earth need not be boring or meaningless.
- Death is not our enemy, but a portal to profound insight and expanded awareness.
- Animals from which we evolved (symbolized in Mr. Mittens) continue to guide us.
- So do previous human incarnations (like 22's George Orwell and Muhammed Ali) who somehow persist as our mentor guardian angels.
- When our joys become obsessive, they disconnect us from life's richness.
- Even our "dream jobs" are comparatively insignificant - carried out in the equivalent of a small basement jazz club.
- The same holds true for the heroes we idolize (like the self-important diva Dorothea Williams).
- In the light of impending death, (if we're lucky) consciousness of such relativity eventually dawns as we realize that wish fulfillment isn't all it's cracked up to be.
- Instead, life is about overcoming separations - male from female, black from white, animal from human, body from soul.
- It's important "to jazz" and free flow at every opportunity; music and life both operate by the same rules.
These insights merit not only superficial review, but serious meditation by those whose spiritual hunger evokes them from sensitive writers like Docter, Jones and Powers despite their employment by Disney.
Do yourself a favor and see Pixar's "Soul." It will set you on the path of Dante, Virgil, Beatrice -- and Joe Gardner.
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