Religion

No matter your religion, if you believe in any sort of a concept of soul, and any sort of creator of these souls then you would probably stipulate that this creator did the work a long time ago. A very long time ago. Whatever the means, or purpose for this act, it was done, and considered finished at that time. The artist walked to the other end of the room, turned around, viewed the work and said "Yeah, that'll do".

Assuming souls are reserved for people, human beings, us, then the following paradox arises. If the business of soul creation has stopped, why is it that there are so many more of us than in antiquity? If there are a finite number of souls and more and more people are born into the world all the time what are we... fractions of souls? Are we souls divided? Partial souls?

This would explain a good bit. Look around at your fellows. Not very impressive are they? But when you read about people in history, they seem... well, better. Maybe they were. Maybe we are being diluted. Perhaps we have the genetic makeup of muddy water. We do seem to be de-evolving. Music becomes more primitive, language does, all of the arts really get more and more primitive and basic with every generation. A splash of paint where once there was beauty that made you believe in your deity. Where is our Beethoven? Where is our Michelangelo? But perhaps Beethoven himself was a lucky combination of the right genes that happened to create a whole, or at least nearly whole person. As far as music was concerned anyway. Could Michelangelo be the product of perfect inbreeding?

Could it be that John, Paul, George and Ringo each held just the right part of a whole that when they were together they dazzled us? Apart, not as much. Can it be that certain people really are "meant" to be together as the romance novel would have it? How do you find your soul mate and how do you recognize them when you find them? How do you know how many there are? How many numbers follow the decimal point that describes your particular fraction?

Most marriages end in divorce. All the traditional ways of meeting and mating are changing as fast as technology can come up with new ways to try. We as a people move around a lot. And I don't just mean the fact that you yourself have no doubt lived in numerous dwellings in your life so far, even though you probably have. I mean we, as a people are nomads and drifters. It's how we're built. With technology we move further and faster than ever possible before. What do you think we are looking for? Perhaps the rest of our souls. eHarmony, MySpace, Facebook, it's all just an expression of the search. And maybe on occasion they work. But probably they have no better average than arranged marriages or any of the others. If we found the rest of our soul and it turned out to be fifteen people, could we settle down and be happy and productive? I don't know.




Frankly I myself don't have the answer to these questions I bring up. I can't define it in a testable scientific way. I can't even cite the variables. But let's face it. That's not exactly Elvis sitting next to you is it? We know it when we see it, and we don't see it very often. Most people you meet seem kind of... watered down. And maybe that's just what they are.