Unbearable Lightness of Being...
Disclaimer: This post is not a review of the above mentioned book. The book is a great piece of work by Milan Kundera, but this post doesn't really talk about it except the Title and its basic idea.
'Unbearable Lightness of Being' - The first time I read this phrase, I said, 'How true!' It was the most concise way of putting the thought that has always troubled me.
Throughout my teenage I kept asking a question to myself and sometimes to others - Whats the purpose of my Life? In fact, what is the purpose of Existence? I remember myself writing somewhere - "Life, of all the things, cannot be left unreasoned. There has to be one, strong enough to drive the entire force."
The answers I got were hard to accept. I kept pondering over them for a long time. Life cannot be meaningless, otherwise it would all be a waste - a negative, which it cannot be. So if it is positive, it cannot be a burden. Hence in due course of time I came to terms with the idea that Existence is light, weightless and the Purpose is to live It with this realization.
Now this second part is what I call unbearable - Living with the realization that existence is light. Even if I know what I know, it is immensely difficult to actually implement. We are so used to associating ourselves with our ambitions, pride, status, that I say, "this is what I am" and suddenly my life becomes heavy, carrying the weight of all that I strive for. If I try to disassociate myself from all these then I think - Whats the point if nothing really matters!
I guess there is a subtle difference between 'what I am' and 'what I exist as'. Let me work more on this thought...
'Unbearable Lightness of Being' - The first time I read this phrase, I said, 'How true!' It was the most concise way of putting the thought that has always troubled me.
Throughout my teenage I kept asking a question to myself and sometimes to others - Whats the purpose of my Life? In fact, what is the purpose of Existence? I remember myself writing somewhere - "Life, of all the things, cannot be left unreasoned. There has to be one, strong enough to drive the entire force."
The answers I got were hard to accept. I kept pondering over them for a long time. Life cannot be meaningless, otherwise it would all be a waste - a negative, which it cannot be. So if it is positive, it cannot be a burden. Hence in due course of time I came to terms with the idea that Existence is light, weightless and the Purpose is to live It with this realization.
Now this second part is what I call unbearable - Living with the realization that existence is light. Even if I know what I know, it is immensely difficult to actually implement. We are so used to associating ourselves with our ambitions, pride, status, that I say, "this is what I am" and suddenly my life becomes heavy, carrying the weight of all that I strive for. If I try to disassociate myself from all these then I think - Whats the point if nothing really matters!
I guess there is a subtle difference between 'what I am' and 'what I exist as'. Let me work more on this thought...
posted by zero-state at 4:46 PM
2 Comments:
The more I thought about this, the more I tended to have more hermit like/nerdy lifestyle.. the weight of this question hits the passionate & dispassionate alike (you know the first point of view, a dispassionate dude will be thinking "what's the point of doing nothing")..
Maybe we are not supposed to know why we exist.. maybe we are just freaks of nature, jokes of probability, an evanescent blimp on the illusionary temporal landscape. That still makes life unbearable right? .. well not if you live life as you play a videogame..
you know that the game isn't real but you still play it to get max points..
Maybe the ancient civilizations invented religions and society to keep humans occupied and provide a yardstick with which to measure themselves...just like a game, something we all know to be quite untrue but still follow nevertheless.. because otherwise what's the point.
The 'may be' here is the pain point. It is very difficult for my brain to accept this fact that the basic intention of my existence is still an assumption.
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