SOULMATES

SOULMATES

This is the theme of this essay- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulmate . Now let me point out an excerpt from this article. “In his dialogue The Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes present a story about soul mates. Aristophanes states that humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces, but Zeus feared their power and split them all in half, condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete them”. Now this above dialogue has the same implications as the one commonly used that “jodis” are made in heaven and God throws them apart on this earth and expects us to find our “other half” in this lifetime! As the article goes on to state “In current usage, "soulmate" usually refers to a romantic partner, with the implication of an exclusive life-long bond”! I do agree with all of the above. Yes! But, However, Yet, I need to make a small and yet profound modification by stating that we indeed have two soulmates on this earth- an Emotional Soulmate and a Mental Soulmate!

Let me start off by firstly pointing out very very bluntly that the person you are with- your bf/ gf/ wife/ husband/ live-in partner- is not your soulmate. Maybe, just maybe, he/she is the soulmate from amongst the people you know. Well, the above statement is sort of redundant. But what I am trying to drive at is- we haven’t socialised enough to come to that conclusion. There surely is someone out there who is more perfect than the person you are currently with! And I love going by percentages. So the 70 %  perfection you have with him/her can be improved upon by being with someone with a 90/95 % perfection. Now, yes obviously one will say compromises/ sacrifices etcetera are a part of life/ relationship blah bleh blah! Fine, it does add a spice to the everyday boring life! But all it leads to is a bitterness in the mouth, right? Now if that bitterness doesn’t seem enough to pull a trigger to your or that person’s head then please go ahead with your “love” till you reach that stage! I am not really pessimistic, I am just saying there’s always someone better and more perfect out there! All you need is a bit more socialising! People meet their “soulmates” over the net, by being pen-friends, sms’ etcetera etcetera! This just goes to prove that one can feel the perfectness over such interfaces where one doesn’t even actually see the other person! So go out there and meet more people!!!

Romeo and Juliet for that matter and perfect couples from other love stories  are not really soulmates! They are simply two people wishing to be with each other! They have probably not even been in a relationship! At least when two people are in a relationship, it can provide the answer as to whether they are emotional/mental soulmates. And since we do not have any such information about them, we cannot really conclude about them being soulmates! As Savage Garden puts it “ I want you. But I don’t know whether I need you. Ooh I would die to find out”!

Arranged marriages are CRAP! Even if they do turn out to be emotional/mental soulmates, what is involved in such a relationship is a huge huge amount of compensation/sacrifice. Maybe that compromise is what is required in life- hence to attain peace, an arranged marriage may be a better option. At least a more socially viable option in which you can always blame someone else for things not working out! But well, as I would put it, a five year contract (subject to renewal) is the best option which brings out the best of both love and arranged marriages! A present day concept of live-in is an equivalent option, the only difference that my theory involves is a complete lack of the whole concept of marriage! Bliss! Heaven! ( Speaking of which does it say whether Adam and Eve were married?)

Here the assumption is that an emotional/mental soulmate doesn’t last forever! Why??? Before answering the above query, I shall point out that an emotional soulmate is obviously >>>>> mental soulmate. However there are fallacies here as shall be discussed hereafter. An emotional soulmate may not have the sufficient required percentage of a mental soulmate. That creates the issues. The other point is that an emotional soulmate is more easily replaceable than a mental soulmate. However the human being, especially the less westernised human being is very sceptical at doing so. He/ especially the she shall try her best to ensure that the person she has decided to be her soulmate stays with her forever. Boys are not very far behind though! What actually defines the emotional soulmate is rather something different from all those other potential soulmates- the shallow human being normally uses the beauty paradigm and the attention meter to decide the soulmate!

The mental soulmate is much more easier to pinpoint! When you find your sentence continuously being finished off by someone else, it is surely an indicator! Now yes, I will argue that such soulmates often end up as people of the same sex. However the human being prefers  such a perfect person normally from the opposite sex! A mental soulmate doesn’t necessarily mean liking the same music, books, football club! They are indicators, yes, but liking the same damn stuff doesn’t necessarily translate into the conclusion of a mental soulmate. An example- the typical story in which a couple of students fight each other in college over different political ideologies. They simply hate each other. But when they meet each other after a couple of years they realise they are the exemplified picture of mental soulmates simply minus the fact that they were on opposite political sides!

Coming back to the question of percentages. What is required is to strike a balance between the emotional/mental soulmate. Here it must be mentioned that one may not ever be in a relationship with a mental soulmate. They might just pass off a lifetime together without entering a relationship simply because they do not have an iota of emotional relationship potential! Emotional soulmates may/ may not be of the same type but mental soulmates necessarily are. Which is why and where the problem arises, two egos coming together! That is where one needs to take a decision- whether you are searching for the matching jigsaw or the complementing/fitting piece!

A few points to be added at the end:

·         In all the above considerations, “looks”/ “shallowness” has been discounted. How such factors influence the human mind is another very simple story! Wouldn’t I love to be Salma Hayek’s soulmate???!!!

·         An assumption has been made that every person is unique! When it isn’t actually wholly so!

·          Potential soulmates never end up together even though they know each other due to sociological/theological/ethnic/cultural other kinds of differences. Place the two people in an unobtrusive scenario and then notice the difference!