Matters of the Heart part two- of soulmates, perfect matches and "the one"

In my last post I attempted to offer my own personal opinions on the nature of love. I tried to answer a few questions on this matter which I myself posed at the beginning of the post. I ended up leaving one question hanging, as I thought I would need a whole other post to address this one tangent of the "love" dilemma. Is it possible to love more than one person at the same time ? Before I can attempt to offer my own thoughts on this, I must address a concept that often arises when 'love' comes into play; is there such a thing as 'the one' ?

The origin of the concept of the "soul mate" is blurry, but many believed it first appears in Plato's SYMPOSIUM. It was believed that human beings were originally 4-legged, 4-armed and 2-faced, and that god Zeus, in fear of their power, split them in half. Other cultures seem to extrapolate from this and posit that if these halves are reunited, the result is a union of great power, strength, stability, magic and wonder. Some cultures believe that the powers-that-be created human beings in pairs of "twin souls"; the halves must seek each other out in life and beyond in order to find eternal peace. In many contemporary cultures, the concept of the soul mate is one that is believed in by many. It is very common to hear talk of finding "the one": that one person to whom one is destined to spend the rest of one's life with, someone who is perfectly matched and who is capable of loving one like no other. Most people go on their dating and courting conquests in search of this 'one'. But how do we even know "the one" really exists ? Is it logical or rational to believe that a soul mate exists for every person out there?

As is seemingly the case with many aspects of 'love' matters, logic and reason arent paramount on the 'causes of behaviour' list when it comes to love. Going back to my previous post, I had already established my position that love is highly imperfect, just as human beings are imperfect. While in some instances there are fairy-tale romances, in other cases love is a cause of great strife and confusion, and often situations tragically end up in chaos. I do not believe in soul mates and "the one" in the traditional sense, because frankly this view is not in keeping with the views I expressed previously. Love is often a very messy and complex thing; I would assume that if another person were destined to be my 'soul mate' and were perfectly matched for me then I would certainly recognize that person when I encountered them. Indeed, it may be that soul mates do indeed exist, but not all soul mates are lucky enough to discover each other. However, I do not believe in such things as that would assume love to be some sort of higher order operative clause of human existence; indeed, the concept of fate deciding lovers is anti-thesis to the concept of love as I had outlined previously. Love depends on too many factors for it to be a planned occurence. The fact that some situations APPEAR to be story-book in nature is simply a coincidence. We use the concept of "true love" and the ike to create a sense of hope for those who are unlucky in love; they should never give up despite striking out, because Mr. or Mrs. Right is out there waiting for them. This is all well and good, but I think many people look at the whole thing in the wrong way. As I said in the previous post, love can be nurtured, or fostered, or learned. A person need not be "the one" or be a perfect match to be compatible with another. Thus I do believe in 'the one', but not in the sense of what I described above. I believe 'the one' is not a pre-destined person that was planned for you in the grand scheme of things, but rather 'the one' is that person (who you may or may not meet in your lifetime), who, because of instant chemistry, compatible situations, long histories together, or a combination of all of these and other things, is a person who you can see yourself spending the rest of your life with. A person does not necessarily have a single " Mr. or Mrs. Right" in their life. Think of people whose spouses/hubbies etc have died; how many of these go on to meet other people who they love and cherish just as much as their departed.

So returning to my original question, I definitely believe that it is possible to love more than one person at the same time. Love is imperfect (as I have reiterated many times) and does not have to be singular; multiple people can have different impacts on the life of a particular person that cause that one person to feel strongly about them, enough for that person to love all of the former. In the end, it is more if a social dilemma than anything else, choices usually have to be made based on the pressures of the society/ culture in which the person-loving-more-than-one lives in and values. Usually the prevailing notions of morality (which definitely vary from person to person and culture to culture) are most influential in choosing who one "loves" the most.

To sum it all up, I will again say that I am a hopeless romantic. Romance is not always the lovey-dovey cliche stuff we read about or see in movies. Real romance is found in the situations (however exciting or mundane, good or bad, tragic or triumphant) that lead to love being recognized. To say that people are pre-destined to be together takes away a person's ability to create situations where love can be possible; in other words, it makes impossible the existence of romance. To say that there is a ONE RIGHT PERSON out there for me gives me a one-in-6billion chance of finding 'true love'; but to say love is possible in many situations gives me much improved odds at actually finding it. After all, all human beings deserve the chance to love, and to be loved.

What do you think ?

What do you think ?