The Unbearable Lightness of Being

For the past week or so I've been reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It's a book by Milan Kundera about opposing views and feelings, and how it relates to life. He talks about Nietzsche's idea of eternal return, and whether it would be better to have the unbearable responsibility of living over and over again, or the unbearable lightness of living once, never really experiencing anything. He then goes on to talk about the opposing views of love. He does this by telling a story of two lovers, who had a passionate love at first, but then their love started to suffocate each other. The man loved the woman, but couldn't let go of his other lovers, and didn't see why his wife cared so much when he only ever wanted to fall asleep with her. For him love was wanting to wake up in the middle of the night with somebody beside you. For the woman love was being made to feel like an individual. Her only ambition was to feel different, special, "like the crew of her soul was being called to the decks of her body". Because her husband was always cheating on her she felt as if she was just one of many, and that he was drawing an equal line between her and every other woman. This book has had a very profound impact on me so far. It's changed the way I've viewed things like life, love, and feelings. I've come to realize that the reason so many people have disagreements is simply because the meanings they give to words, or feelings differs from that of others. While somebody may feel that a certain word contains a specific connotation another person could feel the complete opposite. It's been slow reading for me to get through, since there's so many different ideas I've never been exposed to before, but I'm really enjoying it.