If society invented the technology for you to know exactly when you would meet your soul mate would you get it? This is the question posed in the film TiMER. In this world science has invented a biotechnological implant that a person can get installed after puberty. Once installed in sets a timer that counts down to the day you will meet your soul mate. There are two catches – 1) it does not tell you who it just tells you when and 2) it only works if your soul mate also has one installed.
Imagine the joy and bliss of knowing just when you would meet “the one” and to no longer have to worry about it. With all the dating websites and self-help books out there, and with the divorce rate being what it is, its clear that some people would find this very enticing. But like anything, technology is a tool, and what if that tool doesn’t work? Imagine the knowledge that you would not meet your ‘one’ until you were in your 50s, effectively ruling out biological parenthood, or the anxiety and terror of a blank timer, of not knowing. It would be pretty much exactly how someone would feel today on the dating scene, only add the fact that other people could know for certain… and you don’t. Would you feel inadequate? Unlovable?
TiMER is a great thought piece, and whether or not you agree with how the characters choose to live their lives, or their reactions to the TiMER, it forces us to think about relationships and how, particularly in western culture, we go searching for ‘the one’. Music, books, films, and art in general fuel this desire, this longing to find our beloved. It expresses our longing to seek.
But what is it we are truly seeking? Because in reality there is no such thing as a ‘soul mate’. Our soul’s true mate is God, it’s creator, and that is who we long for. When we try to find that in another person, of course the relationship will struggle because unlike God humans are imperfect.
TiMER makes us think about this notion of ‘the One’ in a warped take on a romantic comedy. As we watch the characters in the film some reject the notion of the TiMER all together and either never get one, or remove theirs after being unable to deal with the waiting and/or not knowing.
So instead of trying to solve the notion of love through technology, like in the world of the film, how can we go about finding partners in love and creating successful relationships? What should we look for out there since we are not blessed with knowing ‘when’? We may not have the TiMER but luckily we have guidance in the Holy Writings to help us find a partner in love and marriage. Perhaps not “the” one but someone to make a life with, so I leave you with this quote on marriage:
“Bahá’í marriage is the commitment of the two parties one to the other, and their mutual attachment of mind and heart. Each must, however, exercise the utmost care to become thoroughly acquainted with the character of the other, that the binding covenant between them may be a tie that will endure forever. Their purpose must be this: to become loving companions and comrades and at one with each other for time and eternity….
The true marriage of Bahá’ís is this, that husband and wife should be united both physically and spiritually, that they may ever improve the spiritual life of each other, and may enjoy everlasting unity throughout all the worlds of God. This is Bahá’í marriage.”
Moving Pictures 