The Platonic Theory of Souls

Not so typically - but sometimes - if you luck out - you find yourself entering into that deep deep conversation with someone - a vendor, neighbor, complete stranger - maybe your second cousin even - concerning God, eternity, the habits of angels - or some other such spiritual matter - which is refreshing on some level just to find such an interlocutor but also unusual and potentially disorienting - depending on the level of wisdom (or eccentricity) that the other person is able to dispense (not to mention the random people who inject themselves into the theological current) - ... Soon after my re-location to the golden state - I found myself talking to Rick (a mystical ex-surfer with a pastoral calling you might say) and we found ourselves - stumbling upon some of those old issues ...  starting with God of course and the attributes of God (perfect,  unchanging, omniscient, omnipresent, hidden, etc.) God's expectations for humanity, the need for God, but what kind of God - an impersonal prime mover, an Epicurean ghost, a terrifying Absolute Mystery or a loving interventionist, all-knowing, micro-managing pater familias.  Great Spirit I think I mentioned something about being more confused than ever as a pilgrim past the midway point  of life - late to Dante's Inferno... And talking around the issue of fate and free will ... we found ourselves circling back to the ancient thinkers... In that book by Plato (Book 10 of the Republic to be precise) it mentions how before birth each soul had the opportunity to choose their life-path, their allotted destiny ahead of time - which seems eminently fair to me ... a great way to justify the avalanche of suffering and pain that might end up finding its way to them eventually if only by sheer happenstance... because if this primordial myth be true on some level - it means they (the "souls") knew what they were signing up for... Still - a person can wonder how many options were given to them (these "souls") as far as which life to select - and also how many details were provided that accounted for each potential trajectory... And were there enticements or promptings given out by the Demiurge which made some lives appear more profitable or delectable ...? And were misled by greed and ambition - hoodwinked by their love of appearances... Or did all choose accordingly the life best-suited for them according to some purely abstract measure of raw potential? For one brief moment perhaps - they understood the full nature of the risk involved - and consented without provocation - leading us to wonder if everything were fated in advance to transpire as it did....And did some choose to be kings, queens, emperors and patricians - while others settled for lives of obscurity, disfigurement, anonymity and mere subsistence. But then flash-forward to their ultimate instantiation within a body - marked by the coordinates of space and time - the coming to consciousness such as that might be involves a process of forgetting - which also makes one wonder about the thread connecting the free-floating soul to the embodied self ....... So just imagine some of those souls choosing to live in California - having options  (for starters) of mountain or desert, beach town or inland ... of big family, little family... career success... personal struggles...