From the building blocks of Plato.
Love is a choice. That we must keep making over and over.
Allowing the physical vessel to open to it again, for one’s heart centre can physically become closed to let any love in. A heart can run cold if one doesn’t choose love.
One could also argue love is an illusion that exists to hold society together.
If we travel back in time to Plato’s symposium, with the ethos that the “human race can only achieve happiness if love reaches its conclusion”.
One ponders what love reaching its conclusion is.
In the context of Plato’s symposium, it is that we find another in which we can return to our original nature. Original nature for Plato is that of nature not nurture- the blueprint we are born with however it is expressed from our ancestors to our present-day form. So, finding a soulmate is a person we can be our innate self with, with the traumas and resilience of our ancestors embraced somehow by another for healing.
What of our ancestors we embody only some are privileged enough to have evidence of bloodlines to reflect upon, ponder what metaphysical blueprint one may have been given at birth.
For me the many roots of my family tree that has resulted in the branch that is me, I maybe now can reflect on who I am and the people who complement me.
Life kept happening, events to react to and try to respond to what has occurred and recalibrate my direction. The ancestors I never had conversations with, maybe they have influenced who I am more than the ones alive in some way, because of that nature I inherited versus the nurture I received.
Epigenetic elements of trauma are in theory what need healing through finding those soul connections that soothe. Every human living on this planet has had a trauma in their bloodline, the many events humans have endured to stay alive. Everyone also has ancestors who has likely done something terrible to stay alive in the rat race of human existence.
So while I would like to think I have some of the best of my ancestors within me, say for example, the ones who were made by the last great war.
In WW2 my great-grandmother and grandmother who were key in establishing a college for women in Sydney, which is now a major not for profit tertiary institute. Or my Grandfather from that same side of my family who was a Corporal then Peacekeeper. Or on my maternal side my Great Grandfather who was an RAF bomb aimer in a Lancaster bomber then a POW, the RAF being crucial for peace in that chapter of human history.
See it would be great to think I inherited that and I hold some of those actions in me.
But I doubt it, that the actions of my ancestors are part of this blueprint I received at birth. So even with some knowledge of my family tree I still feel my “blueprint” is a mystery to me.
And therefore what people I am still yet to meet to have an “ah we resonate for a reason” moment.
There is the argument that one has many soulmates, not just the one that Plato infers in the Symposium from Aristophanes speech.
That is, the myth of how humans were naturally two expressions of gender in two joined together back-to-back.
Zeus cut and reconfigured the expression of a human’s mythical self to be that of one sex, to weaken the human spirit and plant a seed of desire within each for a missing piece, a piece required for us to find our true nature.
But see one could argue the more pieces we find, that equates to more healing? See this is the thing with human connection and the interactions we have with those humans that our souls align with.
The question of what a soulmate is, there are people who might complete us for a split second in time through a glance or a shared knowing, and others who remain in our life for decades.
It comes back to the varied types of love that exist, for love expresses itself in many forms and has many languages.
Eros- sexual, passionate love; Philia- friendship and shared goodwill, a love for those who are useful, pleasant, rational and virtuous; Storge- familiarity or dependency; Agape- love for all, altruism; Ludus- flirtatious, playful, uncommitted; Pragma-service, duty, shared goals; Philautia-self-love, an unhealthy version of such leads to hubris.
In Plato’s Symposium love is talked of by Eryximachus as “You should gratify and promote the love of well-ordered people, or people who are not yet well ordered but may in this way improve. This love is the good and heavenly one, the love of the heavenly muse. But the common love that is of the muse polymnia; when this type of love is applied it must be applied with caution, to ensure that the recipient enjoys the pleasure it provides without being made self-indulgent… In music, medicine, in every other sphere both human and divine, as far as we can, we must pay careful attention to these two kinds of love, because both kinds are there.” (p.23).
To interpret that there is a common love and a heavenly one, that is a superior version of love itself or maybe just a more constructive one. Eryximachus’s speech goes on to talk of the impact of the violent and lawless love on the order of the natural world. I think this is an ongoing fear of governance, as in theory governable people have a constructive love. The fear of being ruled by desire and what that brings into the natural order of the world other than passion and indulgence.
Love is talked of by Agathon as a god who “drains us of estrangement and fills us with familiarity, causing us to come together in all shared gatherings like this, and acting as our leader in festival, chorus, and sacrifice. He includes mildness and excludes wildness. He is generous of goodwill and ungenerous of ill-will. He is gracious and kindly; gazed on by the wise, admired by the gods; craved by those who denied him, treasured by those enjoying him; father of luxury, elegance, delicacy, grace, desire, longing; careful for good people, careless of bad people; in trouble, in terror, in longing, in discourse, he is the best helmsman, marine, comrade, rescuer.” (p.40).
While I am not all mild and a little wild, I tend to see connotations with colonialism and the dichotomy between humans and nature itself arise in this view of love as a binding factor for society. Love though as a guide, that I understand. We need some agape in a functioning society and pragma, and humans who have Philautia.
Plato’s theorising on human nature in societies within a different text, reason and meaning, sees five classifications. Meritocracy, which he deems the best where the talented rule, how talents are determined when you factor in innate privilege makes it easy for one to critique Plato as this being the best version of society. A timarchic society where possession of property is required for governance, honor and fame are driving factors for governance and not reason. The oligarchy, societies where governance is driven by desire for money, business and privatisation inclined to benefit a small section of the rich prevails. Plato is not a fan of democracy in which he states the people who lack discipline seize power, with anarchy going further into power in self-indulgence. However, the thing with any postulation on societies during Plato’s life span, that is the epoch of 427-347 BCE, is societies are classified through human systems, also slavery was commonplace.
Currently societies see an increasing need to be formed around the dynamic range of resources required to sustain them not necessarily the modes of order that might create better ethics or prosperity within that society per se.
So, we see a need for a balance of both human systems that improve and promote ethical behaviour and a level of abundance for citizens while tied to the natural systems that sustain order itself, which is ironic that small anarchist movements may be tied to more sustainable land use in this day and age.
So how to maintain love, the ongoing illusion of what holds a society together.
Love for the greater good of each other’s wellbeing. Agape.
What does Agape look like to you? Is it a feeling of a want for equity or equality for all? Or something else? Or have you never felt it?
See for ongoing wellness of a populous, elements of said society are required to be robust enough to withstand internal disputes over what is a fair solution to urban growth. Everyone has to love what the future looks like, that is the beauty of media and its influence of how to tell us what we need to be concerned about. When realistically relevant issues pertaining to societal growth, security, and resilience can be skewed through mainstream media.
Unified aspects of a culture can be embedded into the urban design as ongoing feedback for individuals, once this is emplaced in the social structure then there is a cultural baseline to a place from street signs to numberplates. That is one aspect of colonization I despise, seeing the same street names in every city.
Then there is the reality we still rely on religion institutions for people to promote a love of our fellow human, which is concerning.
Religion isn’t the answer to love. What is interesting about the impact of religion on governments, is that religion is a world of agreed upon myth. That which outlines systems of belonging or ways to understand the human psyche, the stories that have become fables for a particular lineage of people and then act as a moral guide. Realistically how does religious myth help governance and the evolution of human rights?
The power of connection religion provides people is great, and in some parts of the world the selfless work of some religious bodies shows more compassion to a populous than a governing body.
However religion cannot be intertwined with the power of governing systems that provide order. Governing bodies rely on numerous entities that hold power to maintain order within a state and also across borders. How to protect a governing body from entities that hold sway at the community level, for better or worse, in terms of a risk of corruption of process which can impact equitable access of services to the entire populous of a place is an ongoing challenge for any civilization.
This is ongoing in the construction and infrastructure sector of Australia and its interactions with our governments at the state level. I am not loving what a future looks like of continual construction company collapses and the ramification on the working class. One could argue there is more honor in the illicit drug industry than the Australian construction industry.
There is also the factor many people do not want equitable access for all, that is equal voices in parliament and like Plato, think that only those with merit and property are to have a say in governing.
Humans and the need for many to see themselves as different through financial status, or “a cut above”, to excuse themselves from the notion of agape. Love for all.