A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes

From The Passionate State of Mind by Eric Hoffer.

31

Man's longings are the raw material of his creativeness, his dreams, his excesses, his self-sacrifice, his urge to build and to destroy. A man's soul is pierced as it were with holes, and as his longings flow through each they are transmuted into something specific. The flow through one outlet affects the flow through all the others. Creativeness is a leak, so are dissipation, self-sacrifice, acquisition, the fever of building and the frenzy of destruction; the love of women, of God and of humanity.