below

Now and then one becomes aware of Earth.  Not where we live, but under it - the underlying, planetary earth.  An earth for which the continents and oceans would be no more than freckles or the hair on one's leg, were it not that the rises and trenches are, physically speaking, from the Earth.

And then of the atmosphere, properly part of the Earth but separate to our conception because we live between what is above and below. 

And that is the point: we exist across a vast and fertile surface of contact, a laminate of earth and air, a laminate that works upon solar light and heat and other energy, primarily at the surface of contact.

Certain plastics, each porous or weak when formed into films, can become impassible or strong when laminated together.  More precisely, it is the the interaction at the contact surface between the two materials is impassible or strong.  That contact surface is not a third substance, but rather the properties of contact between the two: it is the contact itself that yields the useful characteristics.

So it is with Earth - the vitality is at the surface, between earth and air, borne of contact.

So it is with people - the metaphor of a person's depths misunderstands that what is deepest about a person is not his innermost thoughts, just as a person's core is not his weightiest part.  The soul is at the skin.  The most important things about a person are right upon the surface - and exist by his contact with others.