Let's talk about love

What do I want to talk about exactly? Well I want to key you in to a story that is one of my favorites of all time. It is a story as told by Plato in his philosophical text the Symposium. If you are unaware of what a symposium is, imagine this setting:

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 You and all of your good friends gather at the home of another and spend all night drinking good wine on fine couches and telling stories to entertain one another. THIS particular  drinking party which Plato has conceived is one whose stories all are encomiums, stories of praise, for a very specific topic : Love.

Each man takes turns telling their stories: the aristocrat Phaedrus goes first, next the lawyer Pausanias, then the physician Eryximachus stands in for Aristophanes because he has been delayed by a bout of the hiccups. After he is done, Aristophanes the comic playwright returns after dealing with his hiccups and begins to explain his view on love by way of a story.

Now I call this a story, and not a myth, because it seems to have no real basis in Greek mythology, and solely serves Plato’s use as a literary device. Still it is a story that I personally love and it is considered by many to be one of Plato’s finest works.

So here it goes:

First you must understand the original nature of human beings as told by Aristophanes:

There were originally three types of humans

• Male
• Female
• And beings which were both Male & Female

All were round in shape, had two faces, four hands, and four legs, and were remarkably superior to us in nearly every way.

Male humans were offspring of the Sun,

Female humans were offspring of the Earth ,

and Male /Female humans were offspring of the Moon, because the Moon shares in both.

Now, because we were so remarkably superior to our current forms, we ran wild. We were so terribly powerful and ambitious that we made an attempt at overthrowing the gods, much as the gods had overthrown the Titans, and Zeus and the others on Mount Olympus called a meeting to discuss what to do with the terrible humans.

One the one hand, they couldn’t wipe us out with thunderbolts like they had the giants – for they needed our worship and sacrifices. On the other hand, they couldnt let us run wild and usurp the divine order they had established.

So Zeus came up with a brilliant idea! He would cut us in half! And so he did! He threw lightning bolts at us and sliced us in two.

 

After doing so, he commanded Apollo to turn our heads around to face our wound so we would never be able to forget that we once had another half, always knowing the power of the gods and the order they command. The God Apollo did as asked, turning the body around so that we faced the opposite way, and he drew the rest of the skin together over the stomach, and tied it in a knot – which is why we have a belly button. We were healed yet wounded.

In doing so, he destroyed our strength and increased the power of the gods, since now there were twice as many people in the world, and worship and sacrifice had increased.

Now, since each one had been cut in half, they longed for their original forms, and sought out their other halves.

This is Platos explanations for why we are drawn to other people, why we seek our other halves – Sun people are men that seek men, Earth people are women that seek women, and Moon people are people that seek the opposite sex- this is what Love is now called, a sense of belonging to one another, not wanting to be separated from one another, not even for a moment, a pursuit of wholeness, a desire to be complete.

Unfortunately this is a desire that will never fade, for as you can see even in the arms of our loves, we are not whole… for Zeus divided us as punishment for a wrong we did. And there is always danger that we might be split even further into more pieces if we anger the gods! So, we must respect the gods and keep order, and hope that one day the gods will bestow upon us our original forms. Complete once more, and after long last, whole.

How best to show respect to the gods? By following what it is we love, for the god of Love draws us toward what truly belongs to us, he seeks to help us be whole again, and for this perhaps in due time, if we truly praise Love, we will one day again be one.

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Now, that’s the story that Plato tells us through the words of Aristophanes in Symposium, and while I strongly urge all of you to read the actual work, because it’s truly brilliant, and it’s depiction of love really matters even today, with that said, today I want to talk about Self-Love.

 

No, get your fucking hands out of your pants you pervert, not that sort of self love. I am talking about unending and never wavering love for who you are as the soul that inhabits whatever form it may take. It does not matter if you are complete, and if you think that any moment you could have ripped away from you everything in the world and you would not be the same person you are regardless of that, then you will never be whole no matter who or what you surround yourself with. Take this as fact.

Your body will inevitably falter and fade. The sundust you are will eventually decay and then whatever it is that you are will either:

 

A) Cease to exist

or

B) Enter into an entirely different plane of existence

It doesnt matter what god you follow, or what it is that you do, one of those two options will happen inevitably. So, you have two choices in how to engage with this measly existence that we call Life. You may:

A) Hate your existence

or

B) Enter into an entirely different plane of existence where you are someone who loves yourself for everything that you are because you will always be that, and also for everything that you may never be, because that is what you are as well.

 

Find what completes you. Find yourself. Be Whole.

 

Or don’t. You’re the one who gets to decide the path you take.