“Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh, ‘Teachings on Love’
The notion of a soulmate has always fascinated, yet repeatedly failed to convince me. Maybe it’s the cynic in me that surfaces more often than not, which persuades me to believe that people who are waiting for one, are simply living in some kind of fool’s paradise where spring blossoms eternal and the rain brings forth arched colours, not the mud that stains or the acid that corrodes.
So what is it about a soulmate that charms us to such a vast extent? I wonder, for I am yet to see a real person match the enchantment of the illusion.
Perhaps the idea arises from the superficially nonchalant yet inwardly desperate craving for happy endings. And maybe, its strength lies in the enigmatic unknown. Then again, maybe it’s quite simply the result of the culmination of all our secret yearnings, projected onto that one person, who we know, with the unwavering faith of a believer, will be everything we’ve ever wanted, to make us feel complete. Who will, in effect, grant us our ‘happily ever after’.
What then of happiness...that ephemeral, elusive butterfly that seems to flutter awhile in thoughtful circles before it finally alights on our shoulder, only to fly away faster than we can reach out and touch it? Why do we seem so naturally predisposed to linking our happiness to the discovery of this equally elusive person...the one we label soulmate? And how can happiness such as this, that is so contingent on another person, find a way to stay?
So maybe I don’t believe in the idea of an ‘other half’ to one’s soul, and maybe I prefer the idea of two people who enhance, rather than complement, or even complete each other. Maybe I'd rather acknowledge that happiness lies more in our own conviction that we are loved, and wanted for who we are, by someone, by anyone, rather than in laying and risking the burden of this feeling on one person’s fragile shoulders and calling them our soulmate.
I, however, lend my heart to the undying optimism of those who believe in finding their twin soul, because I think that it is this, their unshaken belief in the veiled but definite presence of their very own someone, that keeps people going, long after all the reasons why they should, have ended.
And maybe it is this conviction...of a soulmate, waiting for us somewhere down time and space, which sustains us and gives us reason for hope in our perfectly imperfect lives.
I painted this for someone I thought was like the sun...close enough and yet exceedingly distant, warm, yet sometimes harsh enough to burn, and though jealously guarding his spaces, letting me in as far as his affection and need would disallow.
