Are we underlyingly all really a single, unified organism? Or do we just have a lot in common? PEL's most verbose hosts Mark Linsenmayer and Wes Alwan begin unraveling this puzzling claim by reading Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1841 essay "The Over-Soul" and explaining it line-by-line. Watch this episode on video at YouTube. We encourage you to read along in the essay with us. This is the first of four parts. To hear the others as they are released this week, plus weekly episodes going forward and three episodes already posted, please support this new effort at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy (or support PEL and Closereads together via support at the $10 level at patreon.com/partiallyexaminedlife. Sponsor: Check out Drilled, a true-crime podcast about climate change. Enrollment is now open for Mark's Core Philosophy Texts class at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class. Support PEL to get this discussion ad-free, plus tons of bonus content.