Soul Mates

All of the speeches about love given in the Symposium were interesting, but the one that I liked the most was Aristophanes'. Although I do not necessarily agree with his idea that we all have one soul mate, I like it. People today always talk about their "soul mate" and how there is that one person out there that will complete you. I am not sure if the idea came specifically from this piece of literature or not, but before reading it I never knew how the idea a of soul mate came about. Whether or not Aristophanes' story is where it originated, I would like to think that it is because it is such great story. It makes complete sense as well because if we did used to be one body but were split in half, two people truly would share a soul. When looking at love in this way it kind of does give someone hope and trust that there is one person out there that is perfect for you.

When I read this the first thing that popped into my head was the movie "Hancock." Hancock is a superhero that remembers nothing about his past at all. For the majority of the movie he believes that he is the only one of his kind, but later he finds out that this isn't true. There is one other being like him, a woman in fact. She explains to him that there used to be many others like them, but they all lost their immortality and died. When such godlike beings were created, it was done in pairs. The other was similar to their soul mate. Now, if the two spent too much time together they would be able to live in love and happiness, but they would lose their immortality. I thought that the idea of love and soul mates presented in the movie was a kind of representation of that described by Aristophanes in his speech. Once again, it is an example of how the past can be seen in present pop culture.

Something else that I found interesting was the idea of tallys, or symballem. When I was young I had friendship bracelets and necklaces that I shared with many of my friends. In fact, I am pretty sure that to this day I still have the pieces somewhere. It is interesting that the idea went from a broken coin and morphed into friendship charms centuries later.