“The unbearable lightness of being” is borrowed from the title Milan Kundera’s book.
Frederick Nietzsche’s “eternal return” theory posits that everything in life and the universe has occurred before, and will continue to occur again ad infinitum. He suggests that the understanding of this adds a certain ‘weight’ to ones’ existence; that the knowledge that the universe is recurring imparts a responsibility upon us all to live a life that one would be prepared to repeat. That is to say that ones’ deeds should be just, and not a cause for shame or regret. This figurative weight upon our shoulders could be either a tremendous assignment of responsibility, or equally relief from it depending on your perspective. Life and its’ events, from this point of view, are meaningful because they are destined to repeat themselves.*
The contra, then, to Nietzschian philosophy is that every event – including life itself – is fleeting. That time is not a loop but an unending string, along which life begins and ends, the string carrying on – indifferent – as if those lives never even existed. The theory is that nothing ever repeats itself, and that if something never happens again, it may as well have never occurred in the first place. Life and the events that make up its story ultimately don’t matter; thus they need not be afforded any ‘weight’ as per Nietzsche’s way of seeing the world.
But neither of these philosophies apply to me. In the context of the universe, my existence doesn’t matter. To paraphrase** a better mind than my own, every hero and villain, king and peasant, empire and rebellion, Hitler and Elvis have existed for only the briefest of seconds. The universe carried on as if they never happened, as it will with me. I think this is neither cause for empty philosophising nor callow rhetoric but a perfect alibi for making everything count.
That said, look at this paper gun I’m making. Four irrecoverable hours so far.
* Whether Nietzsche meant that they would repeat exactly, or through some proxy remains (at least to me) an enigma, but don’t let it weigh on you – philosophy is 99% bullshit anyway.
** – Because I’m not going to look it up.
