kundera and nietzsche

Excerpts from an all time favourite book.....

"In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsiblity lies heavy on every move we make.This is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens (das schwerste Gewicht)."

"But is this heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?"

"The heaviest of burdens crushes us,we sink beneath it and 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 simultanoeously an image of life's most intense fulfilment.The heavier the burned, 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...... so what then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?"

"Parmenides posed this very question in the 6th century BC... and in his opinion lightness is positive,weight negative. Was he right in saying that ?"

"The only certainty is : the lightness/weight opposition is the most mysterious,most ambigous of all."


from
THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
by
MILAN KUNDERA