In Plato’s Symposium, Aristophanes gives a speech about the origin of human beings. In the beginning, he says, every human had four legs, four arms, and two heads. They were strong and ambitious creatures. Zeus, in order to diminish their fearsome powers, split them all down the middle. Now, walking on only two legs, every human is in search of their other half. “ ‘Love,’ ” Plato says, “is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.”
