🆒 of the Week: “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera

W 7/52

What a novel… The “Unbearable Lightness of Being” is one of these books that changes you. The self I was three months ago when I read the first page, and the self I am now after 393 pages are slightly different, affected by the Czech author’s philosophy on human existance.

Kundera doesn’t believe in our eternal return and strongly disagrees with Nietzsche vision (philosophers beef!). To him, having one and only life is quasi-similar to having none.. We won’t be able to perfect our lives, if we die we are done, therefore we don’t matter that much, we are light..

From his own words: ”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 burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into 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?” — Milan Kundera

Lightness means freedom, but it is unbearable for us human to accept our lightness. Therefore we attempt to create heaviness..

Lightness or Weight?

Kundera’s characters Tomas, Teresa, Sabina, Franz and Simon are the personification of Kundera’s paradoxical philosophy. Through the pages, you will get to love them and recognize bribes of yourself in each of them.

1968 Prague Spring and our current Instagram society can feel very different, but we are all manipulated by the “Kitch”.. We are all oscillating between lightness and gravity.

If you end up reading it (or read it already), let’s talk about it! I also found out that there is a movie adaptation, gotta watch it!