platonic love
warning: this post will probably be so incredibly boring to you, I wrote it in the same style my mind was flowing at the time - it's an analytical reflection with some dead philosopher's theory thrown into it.
in his brilliance, plato gave us the symposium. The viewpoints on love that he channels through this work have recently been stuck on my mind. in this work, He uses the voice of Socrates – his choice of ‘wise man’ in all of his writings – to communicate his four stages of love. I realize now, I’ve been sequentially going through each stage in my relationships. Before I tell you how, I’ll first briefly explain the levels of love in which he speaks of: the love of the physical, the love of the soul, the love of social concepts, and finally - the love of knowledge.
The first is the most obvious and basic, the precursor, and sadly – the only level most people seem to reach. We all know what this kind of love feels like. socrates' description does not assume sexual attraction, but the general love or admiration of physical forms - and what pleases our senses. I could go into his theory of forms with the cave and universe of perfect ‘everythings’ – but I won’t bore you more than needed to explain myself. You can fall in love with plenty of partners on this level. But, if you are lucky, you soon move out of this once you become aware that physical ‘beauty’ is petty in comparison to the intensity of the higher stages. Next comes the love of the soul. This can be evolved from step one, or it can bypass it and step one can be an unavoidable consequence. For falling in love with someone’s soul is wholesome. Now, this has sadly been as far as I had gotten until recently. Actually, it is quite bittersweet as I am grateful that there are more depths to explore – considering I am still so young. However, I worry that I will personally enjoy this stage the most and may hold its value heavier than those following.
I am thrilled to say that steps three and four seem to be simultaneously unfolding themselves to me. In part, by a person who has recently entered into my life and through more comprehension and evolution of my ‘self’. It has been a pleasure to dive into attempting to understand the constructs of our society, the nature of humanity, and finding the beauty of these concepts. Finally, it is the love of acquiring knowledge – in terms of science and wisdom. Although, personally, this stage does not currently seem like it will be as pleasurable for me. The seeking of absolute truths through science and logical thinking can be magical once you leave yourself alone to work out the most abstract of questions because the ‘eureka’ moments leave you immensely satisfied. However, there is the almost inevitable doom of reaching the end of attainable knowledge – the ‘impossible to know' can certainly drive one’s mind insane.
And then there are two additional concepts that weave through this stepladder towards absolute love: immortality and goodness. Immortality is one of the resulting desires of love. Once you have acquired someone so beautiful, you naturally want to keep them in your pocket forever. You have love constantly flowing through your life and therefore, this person is helping you to recreate beauty each day - which is desirable. Now, Plato saw the desire for love as the ‘desire for goodness’. This goodness is hard for me to explain. But, the important thing to know is that he did not see beauty without goodness nor goodness without beauty. You could not have one without the other. Plato’s ‘goodness’ was not simply morality, but what is good for us individually and the universe as whole. If that lost you, he basically believed that the universe is one – and therefore everything in the universe strives for its good. To bring it to the human level, the things we do to sustain our lives and seek happiness, - like eating when hungry – are good. Now, goodness can change as our desires change, which makes explaining this concept difficult because my mind immediately raced to all of the evil on Earth, then scaling that to the universe. But, let’s just explain that away with the concept of perspective and move on.
Relating immortality to his ladder of love, humans are seeking absolute good (which = beauty, which is a byproduct of love) through these stages. We, and the universe, want to hold onto this goodness for eternity. This is why love cannot be confined to the love of another person. They could leave you, or they could die. This vulnerability is what motivates you to seek love in the third and fourth stages. Once you get to the top of the ladder and find the absolute truths of the universe, you have made it there. In other words, as you fulfill all of these desires you are then completely satisfied and have reached absolute goodness.
Now, to tie back in immortality, you want to possess this good forever so it motivates you to ‘leave a mark’ on this world. This can be done in three ways, according to Plato: by having children, by accomplishing something historically important, or by leaving behind an important piece of work. By procreating, you are lived through your children; a part of you (your DNA) still lingers on Earth after your passing. An example of the second attempt at immortality is what drives ‘heroes’ to sacrifice themselves: they get to leave behind a legacy. Lastly, this great work of importance ranges from Plato’s Symposium to The Human Genome Project. immortality even relates to the fourth stage - once you have absolute knowledge, you will understand that the universe is all one. It is unchanging and eternal – reaching the end of the fourth stage and beholding this 'absolute truth' is essentially becoming immortal.
Now, this is just my interpretation of his theory. Of course, others may summarize it differently through their own perspectives – but you can use this to understand why I am relating it to my experiences of love. My first love was in seventh grade; to this day I know I truly loved him. I now realize, it was stage one of love because I look back to the time where I broke up with him for a week or two (?) because he got a bad haircut. I didn’t even tell him we were broken up; I basically just avoided him at all costs while in school until he got the message. What a douchebag I was, right? But hey, I was like twelve and we got back together when his hair grew out. Things didn’t work out with us but I know I loved his soul too; I just wasn’t mature enough at the time to realize that. But, we’ve maintained a friendship throughout all of these years and I still cherish it. The fact that I am able to look back upon it as love, even through the more mature relations I’ve had since, affirms that it was real. Then, there are the loves I’ve had where the passion and lust were of another dimension – but in reflection, I did not know who my partner really was. I did not know them on a deeper level, and while I could easily picture them as lifelong partners – I am so grateful I moved beyond settling for existing alongside potentially empty shells (really attractive empty shells, nonetheless). It wasn’t until my big love that I realize what I had been missing from past partners.
I certainly did not fall in lust with this guy, but the attraction for him was on a personality level. I wanted to know his mind; he was a burst of positive energy that I wanted to hold onto for eternity. By the end of this relationship I had figured that that was the highest, most intense and consuming love I would ever experience. I wanted to live through lifetimes and dimensions with this soul. No matter the shell that encased him. Trust me when I say that the loss of this love had broken me down into microscopic pieces and my lifeless dusty soul was shot into a seemingly eternal blank void. But, the point is that this was stage two – I wanted to keep this one forever, but it didn’t motivate me to make it eternal in the right ways. I was blinded from the downsides of his soul, and so I let awareness escape me. Side note: I look back and almost punch myself for my lack of consciousness during this period, but then I remember that I was conscious of the motivation I had to make the relationship eternal. The problem was that I just didn’t understand levels of perception enough to prioritize the need for communication. I have such a problem with assuming that people can read my mind and that they know I am ‘good’. But, we are all human and some people only see the things you don’t do or don’t have. It’s difficult making the thoughts and intentions you hold in your mind obvious through your actions. /End long ass side note. I bypassed stage one in this relationship, but it eventually came later and I ended up finding him to be the most attractive living being to ever be birthed on Earth (obviously, I am now aware of my disillusionment). It also shocks me that I fell in love with this guy so quickly and intensely without that first physical stage. It was something that took weeks, maybe months to adjust to – but this wasn’t completely evident to me until recent reflection. It was weird to me, but the connection to this soul was so strong that I didn’t consciously think about it.
So bring me to today, where after one of the longest stretches of depressing greys and zero hope for happiness on the horizon has subsided, I feel like I’m steadily climbing higher on the ladder than i've ever been before. It makes me wonder if it is the love for this guy that has led to this evolution, or if all of the work I’ve done to climb out of the pit was my own success. The lines are blurred because the improvements occurred soon after meeting him. He called himself my light once, for 'saving' me, I won’t give him credit to his face – but I’ll admit now that it might have just been that simple. But, let me walk you through this progression. I’m not sure when stage one hit, I first felt something for him on the most random of nights. In fact, we spent the night out with friends and I hardly knew him, but the slight couple of seconds in the uber exchanging an innocent goodbye struck a weird sensation in my chest. It had me step out of the car and pause for a moment to try to identify it, but our relationship was just that platonic that I shrugged it off and went to bed. We began actually conversing for the first time days after and while I enjoyed his company, I still did not find him as a potential romantic partner. Over time that obviously changed and we eased into a relation (definitely not a relationship, but a definite connection) completely in sync. So here, I’m not sure if the soul or the physical came first. This relationship continued even though I didn’t expect or care for it to – just think back the long void I was in and you can see why I wouldn’t assume anything substantial (like ever again). In fact, at this point i had completely quit 'boys' for months. But, even more shockingly, he became such a large part of my life. literally, i did not see it lasting longer than the couple of weeks we had left together, but it didn't end - and my quality of life improved.
There were certainly external factors: the pressure to fix myself, the months of new experiences and the general change that has on one’s perspective. This new life really helped me to learn to appreciate and love the beauty in the vastness, variety of experiences i add to my memory buckets. My light helped me to do this, I think. At least, he improves, motivates, and adds on to this third stage of love in a way that was nonexistent with previous partners. The funny thing is, the type of love I have for him is not as intense as any former love. I can acknowledge that straight away, but it stretches further. I do see the potential for it to far exceed those previous intensities But, at the same time (and sorry for the back and forth, but that’s how my thoughts roll) it could simply just be a short-lived relationship. I don’t even consider it as a 'love' in the traditional sense, but in plato's sense. but anyways, this period in life is all about my newfound love for exploring life and its' concepts. I’ve always loved thinking and questioning, i first started really getting lost in my mind before I even began kindergarten. i have always known that I would get to experience all the critical joys in life, that I would accomplish many of the goals i strived to - I never worried about missing out on anything. i think that this caused me to jump straight into looking forward to the afterlife, that I think I treat Earth as a checklist rather than a vital existence my soul requires to experience deeply in order to develop. In realizing these things, that there is so much to more to feel, to discover, to attain from this life than getting through it, is beautiful. So, tying that in more specifically with the third stage, I feel less like a robot swaying with the motions of a decent life, and more like a sponge absorbing all of the lessons it has to offer. Questioning why people feel different ways, what their ‘goods’ are, why our society functions as it does, how short the human life cycle is, how our natural instincts and emotions makes us think we're so unique but really not, how repetitive our daily lives can end up being, i could write an entire book just about my evolved love for my family and self... I love all of the good I am finding through these explorations. My world has opened up twelve-fold and I (at least partially) owe it to my light. While I still have an immense desire for that second stage of love, how lonely I do tend to feel, I’ve found a new love that keeps me floating high. The soulmate, when they come, will only be a bonus.
I have no closer - forgive me for I am awful with conclusions! Let’s just say that it’s a continuous journey, these stages of love. Of course there’s so much more to the concept than just the four stages Plato shared with us. There’s also a lot that is questionable about his theory, but that’s a different discussion. It was an almost perfect outline to place my experiences thus far into. If the ladder doesn’t go straight up, if it shifts perpendicularly and flows in a multitude of directions before reaching the top – even better! I can figure out what happens in the next life later and enjoy not knowing when and if I have reached the peak of this one.
Anyways, if you read through my sort-of-mindless-rant / sort-of-progress-of-life-on-earth-journal-entry then wow, thank you. I’m someone who writes down whichever random thoughts come to mind so that I can go back and reflect upon it later. they trigger these realizations in me that I want to further explore, but they never feel wholesome enough to post on here – so, this was a good start. Thank you, Plato, for a productive night!