The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Yesterday, I purchased two books by Milan Kundera:

"The Are of the Novel" in which he discusses the history and theory of such writing, and

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being," a novel.

Kundera is probably a good example of an author weaving philosophy into his literature.

As I was browsing through his novel, pondering whether or not to purchase it, I was struck by the first page of Chapter 2:

"If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens (das schwerste Gewicht).

If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness.

But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?

The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.

Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.

What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?"

(end of quotation)

Chapter 2 concludes with a paragraph on Parmenides who regarded the world as divided into pairs of opposites.

I am woefully ignorant of so many books and authors. I am quite excited to discover Milan Kundera, who seems to be a "kindred spirit" to me, to the things I like to think about, and the manner of thinking which I enjoy.

As I read these two book, I would like to add my observations to this thread and share them with others. Why do we feel such a need to share ideas with others? Why do we feel so incomplete when we are "islands unto ourselves?"