“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.. and when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment...”
Plato, The Symposium
But is there really one unique soulmate for each of us? Or could we love just about anyone? Does romanticism ruin love?
Plato's own view was a lot more abstract: that there's a higher love than that of soulmates, the love of Beauty Itself and the Form of the Good...
“...what if the man could see Beauty Itself, pure, unalloyed, stripped of mortality, and all its pollution, stains, and vanities, unchanging, divine,...the man becoming in that communion, the friend of God, himself immortal;...would that be a life to disregard?”
Socrates may have had a better idea. "He epitomized the fact that you're meant to stay open to all views, to all human experiences, because that's how you deepen your love for people and of wisdom. That amazing man sacrificed his life in the name of classic Athenian values of excellence and honor and compassion, so one day they might live on. And they did, here in America, for more than two centuries. I'm worried my beloved America is becoming as loveless as ancient Athens in its days of decline.”
* Today is Valentine's Day, named after an early Christian priest, St. Valentine, who was martyred on February 14 in 269 A.D. The Emperor Claudius II forbade single men to get married in an effort to bolster his struggling army. Seeing this act as a grave injustice, the priest Valentine performed clandestine wedding rituals in defiance of the emperor, for which he was beheaded. While awaiting his execution in his cell, it is believed that Valentine fell in love with the daughter of a prison guard who would come and visit him. On the day of his death, Valentine left a note for the young woman professing his undying devotion signed "Love from your Valentine,” thus beginning a tradition of love letters to be continued by others. WA
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