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 are as free as they are insignificant.
What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?
Parmenides posed this very question in the sixth century before Christ. He saw the world divided into pairs of opposites: light/darkness, fineness/coarseness, warmth/cold, being/non-being. One half of the opposition he called positive (light, fineness, warmth, being), the other negative. We might find this division into positive and negative poles childishly simple except for one difficulty: which one is positive, weight or lightness?
Parmenides responded: lightness is positive, weight negative.
Was he correct or not? That is the question. The only certainty is: the lightness/weight opposition is the most mysterious, most ambiguous of all.
Wow this is really profound. Thank you for sharing this. It's exactly what I'm feeling right now.
ReplyDeleteand thank you for responding, it only gets better that way :D
ReplyDeleteheyy.. this really made me think...yeah, which one is positive? :-)
ReplyDeletei'm not for Parmenides... i think i need the weight is necessary to be able to feel light. it has to be a progression. an upward scale. :)
ReplyDeletei agree with you on that. :-)
ReplyDeleteYeah...when people don't respond to you or resonate with you...it feels...I don't know how to describe it. I feel incapacitated right now because I used to be able to articulate things so fast like you do. Right now I feel there's a bottleneck somewhere that I can't release. have you ever felt like that?
ReplyDeleteA couple of months back...I was really light. I think I got there after feeling really heavy. So tama nga. But then my going into the really light was brought about by someone telling me that I'm too heavy and that people might feel am an extra weight to carry. So I ventured into the journey of being light...all by myself. Now I'm back to being heavy which suddenly just happened out of the blue and I'm still trying to make sense of it. I'm beginning to realize that you can't always journey by yourself. You need someone to journey with you...only then can you probably sustain the experience at its length.
ReplyDeleteJust to add...your writing and your way of thinking really reminds me of how I am maybe 15 years ago. Haha. And you also remind me of Krizia. I don't know if you met her. If not...you should. :-)
ReplyDeleteoh, definitely. now very much more often than before. i have evidence somewhere (i'll give you That through IM though, haha). it's devastating, really. i have been reduced to writing phrases and other things that i notice, in point-form on a piece of paper, reserving it for a day when i can finally string it all together and be satisfied with it. i feel like i need to be somewhere else to be able to get it going again. like i've drained out all the inspiration within 10km radius.
ReplyDeletethe only time that opposes that is when i respond directly to something... that's the only writing i do now. like now. i say "respond directly" because whenever i write, it's responding to something... i don't know if i speak for others, but i have this theory that everyone who manifests any kind of art is just formulating a response to their inspiration, whether they are conscious of it or not. i commented on a friend's journal once and she replied, (paraphrased) "when clueless in the face of genius, always resort to virutal affection," to which i said "when clueless in the face of genius, hold a mirror up." hahahaha.
i don't even know how to explain what an irresponsive audience is like. it would be better i could just convince myself that there wasn't an audience to begin with, but i already know there is. it's even worse when you know who they are.
fifteen years is a looonnnng time! is that a good thing? hahah. i don't think i've met krizia.. i may know the face, but without a name to it. how interesting :D
ReplyDeletethe only good thing about that feeling of weight is the thought that the only way to go is up. chuck palahniuk wrote in his book Fight Club - "only after disaster can you be ressurected." "the lower you fall, the higher you'll fly."
ReplyDeleteyes, i don't think anyone can ever go about alone. having compainonship here doesn't necesarily mean a physical actual being. it could be anything. faith, a dream, an imaginary friend even - they're all company. though, yes, another physical actual living breathing human being is usually the healthier (for the lack of a better word) option. we need that compassion (co-feeling, as it is translated into other languages), that other person / those other people that - as you have said - resonate with us.
don't be alone, kathy. :)
we have this amazing philosophy teacher in school..sometimes i wonder what goes on in his head. it's just so natural to the guy, but where does it all come from? he seems so simple but you know before his eyes is just something too complex for me to see. the "love of wisdom" that he likes to teach about kinda reminds me of you alot. how one can absorb so much and let it out in beautiful writing..
ReplyDeleteHi Adi, I just read this now. And I'm at a place where I am strengthening my faith. Less reliance on the "physical" so that when the physical comes I am more appreciative of it's fullness.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that you haven't met Krizia yet. Are you serious??? Maybe I should take you both to coffee one time. :-)
one of the most tragic things about my school is that they don't have philosophy in the curriculum.
ReplyDeletei read philosophy online, and yes, i always wonder that too, what goes on in their heads, how they think and how they see the world. there's so much to see and feel and experience but the problem is we are just one person and we can't apparate a la harry potter. (or was the term teleport... or something... i haven't read jk rowling in yeeears)
"how one can absorb so much and let it out in beautiful writing.." - aww wow, thank you. that's what i try to do. i don't think i've ever done enough to mirror exactly what amazes/moves me, like what milan kundera's done with this book, but i hope i get there one day.
that's great kathy :D
ReplyDeleteand coffee sounds suh-weeet. THE FORT HAS THIS FIVE-FLOOR FULLY BOOKED BOOKSTORE WITH A STARBUCKS. HINT HINT?????
(oh my god i'm very behind in this, i only found out yesterday when it opened in june - i've been thinking about the bookstore aaaalll day hahahah damn)
ARE YOU SERIOUS??? WOW! Sige let's plan this soon. :-)
ReplyDeleteill get u a pic of this!!! with all 5 floors + their starbucks hehe
ReplyDelete