The Ancient Greeks believed that soulmates were split-aparts, two sides of a fragmented soul that each yearn for their other half. As your resident skeptic, I’ve long doubted the existence of the singular “soulmate”—or, at least, its relevance in a world of 8 billion people. Much of Mount Pisgah, however, disagrees.
When asked if they believe in soulmates, MPCS students and faculty largely replied in the affirmative.
“I believe in soulmates because I’ve met mine,” Director of Student Life Nathaniel Hilliard said—a sentiment widely agreed upon by teachers and students alike.
Many other students are open to this idea, even if they have yet to find their perfect match. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Mount Pisgah is ready to define love. But is it really that simple?
Though she believes they can exist, freshman Claire Farmer thinks “soulmates are made, not found.”
Senior Caroline Boardman offers a complementary perspective: “Love has a lot to do with proximity and mere exposure. It’s psychology.”
Perhaps soulmates don’t come with batteries included; you have to put in the effort to make them. This is a middle ground I can get by–and a good philosophy for people on the edge.
Maybe love isn’t clean-cut. Maybe it isn’t neat. Maybe, if you look closely, it’s a tangled mess of random variables. But it’s there, and it’s beautiful, if you make it so.
Back to the Greeks: Plato, in accordance with the “split-apart” theory, succeeds in defining love: “Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole,” he wrote. This is the most comprehensive definition I’ve seen, and it lends itself to the soulmate discourse.
If you find your soulmate, they may very well be a perfect half of your romantic soul, and I congratulate you for that.
But we mustn’t discard the love that exists outside of that binary. When you meet your true soulmate, they could be the older lady picking daisies in the park, because you’ve never seen anything more you. They could be the kid that sat next to you on the first day of kindergarten, or the stranger reading on the train. They could be all of those combined. That’s the beauty of love, and that’s the strangeness of becoming whole.
And if you still don’t believe that soulmates exist, maybe pick up some Plato.
