Soulmates

The idea of soul mates actually originated with Plato.

His theory was that humans originally consisted of four arms, four legs and two faces. Zeus was threatened by their power and split them all in half, condemning us all to spend our lives trying to complete ourselves.

Tempe Brennan, Bones S05E15
---

I wonder how this didn't catch my attention before. I searched for Plato and his soul mate theory, and after some research (ehem Wikipedia), I found out that it was part of a series of speeches he wrote examining the nature of love, titled Symposium.

The scriptwriters of Bones actually summed it up well enough, except for one part:

In this myth about soul mates, there were three kinds of humans, male, female and of both sexes. After the split, humans naturally yearned for their other half, so creatures who were only male sought  another male, and so forth.

So while discussing about love and soul mates, Plato also touched the matters of homosexuality.

Do I believe in myths? No, but I find it interesting how people come up with explanations for natural phenomena, and I think this particular explanation for love and homosexuality is rather nice.

Do you believe in soulmates? :)


Image from Cybercauldron.