Lightness is a mixed bag... I remember one dark summer day in Hate College, PA, when Loui the Wonder Dog & yrs v. truly were miserable, individually considering our respective conditions and the parade of errors that had created them. We pooled our meager resources at the grocery store for rice, beans and tortillas and figured out how we could survive on homemade burritos for the week. Then we watched some Cosmos style TV show while we ate up the first batch.
They were talking about the inevitable heat death of the universe. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, every closed system eventually breaks down to a state of equilibrium; following that logic, that means every star in the universe is eventually going to eat itself up, leaving nothing but a warm, evenly spread array of hydrogen atoms.
"Loui," I say, in a moment of enlightment, "Considering the eventual heat death of the universe, it all doesn't matter so much anyway!"
Which at the time, felt strangely comforting. (Still does, in fact.)
The satori here being that all of us -- the winners, the losers, the good, the bad, the ugly, the indifferent, the quick and the dead, the naked and the dead, the short, the tall, the thin (skinny legs and all) -- we'll all end up the same. Thus, your pathetic mistakes matter not a goddamn whit, anyway!
see, ink stain, you know exactly what i am talking about.
Each life is insignificant; every decision does not matter. Since decisions do not matter, they are "light": they do not tie us down. However, at the same time, the insignificance of our decisions - our lives, or being - is unbearable. Hence, "the unbearable lightness of being."
Gotcha. I looked back at the Calvino definition... which in a weird way, reminds me of the concept of Hod in the Qabalistic* tradition: the numinous realm where language lives, giving names and myriad interpretations to underlying impulses and more concrete forms, the realm where transmutation and magic becomes possible because unexpected connections and possibilities become apparent.
______________________
* Referring to the classic Western Qabalah tradition, as distinct from the red-string sporting, celebrity fawning Madonna-ologist Kabbalah that has cropped up in recent years.
If you're interested, two things you might want to check out:
A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism by Gareth Knight -- It's a doorstop of a book, but it's strangely one of the more accessible and revelatory books on the subject that I've encountered.
Alan Moore's PROMETHEA, Books 3 & 4: If y'all know any comicbook geeks in yr area code, you might want to check this out... It's the middle section of a wild, beautifully illustrated series about a young woman who becomes the newest incarnation of the eternal spirit of creativity, a goddess/heroine somewhere between Wonder Woman, Dr. Strange and a Muse. In Books 3 & 4, Moore basically puts the main plot on hold and sends his characters on an Alice in Wonderland like journey through the houses of the Qabalah. Even if you don't know the story up to this point, you can track the ideas... and I think Moore does a pretty great job of really breathing life into the whole concept, finding just exactly the right references to drive the essential concepts home. (I'd already done some study on the Qabalah when I first started reading this, and it was full of moments of "V-8" headslappery for me.)
I'm gonna have to look for it... at least from that wiki, it sounds like Calvino is sneaking up on his own, typically unique, typically post-modern/post-structuralist/post-everything spin on the underlying principles of reality, a new brand of alchemical thinking.
Lightness is a mixed bag... I remember one dark summer day in Hate College, PA, when Loui the Wonder Dog & yrs v. truly were miserable, individually considering our respective conditions and the parade of errors that had created them. We pooled our meager resources at the grocery store for rice, beans and tortillas and figured out how we could survive on homemade burritos for the week. Then we watched some Cosmos style TV show while we ate up the first batch.
They were talking about the inevitable heat death of the universe. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, every closed system eventually breaks down to a state of equilibrium; following that logic, that means every star in the universe is eventually going to eat itself up, leaving nothing but a warm, evenly spread array of hydrogen atoms.
"Loui," I say, in a moment of enlightment, "Considering the eventual heat death of the universe, it all doesn't matter so much anyway!"
Which at the time, felt strangely comforting. (Still does, in
fact.)
The satori here being that all of us -- the winners, the losers, the good, the bad, the ugly, the indifferent, the quick and the dead, the naked and the dead, the short, the tall, the thin (skinny legs and all) -- we'll all end up the same. Thus, your pathetic mistakes matter not a goddamn whit, anyway!
being a fat man, I cant really comment on this thread
see, ink stain, you know exactly what i am talking about.
Each life is insignificant; every decision does not matter. Since decisions do not matter, they are "light": they do not tie us down. However, at the same time, the insignificance of our decisions - our lives, or being - is unbearable. Hence, "the unbearable lightness of being."
but i think the calvino concept of lightness is more what i think about.
Gotcha. I looked back at the Calvino definition... which in a weird way, reminds me of the concept of Hod in the Qabalistic* tradition: the numinous realm where language lives, giving names and myriad interpretations to underlying impulses and more concrete forms, the realm where transmutation and magic becomes possible because unexpected connections and possibilities become apparent.
______________________
* Referring to the classic Western Qabalah tradition, as distinct from the red-string sporting, celebrity fawning Madonna-ologist Kabbalah that has cropped up in recent years.
whoa i should investigate this quabalism. names and interpretations are serious tools.
If you're interested, two things you might want to check out:
A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism by Gareth Knight -- It's a doorstop of a book, but it's strangely one of the more accessible and revelatory books on the subject that I've encountered.
Alan Moore's PROMETHEA, Books 3 & 4: If y'all know any comicbook geeks in yr area code, you might want to check this out... It's the middle section of a wild, beautifully illustrated series about a young woman who becomes the newest incarnation of the eternal spirit of creativity, a goddess/heroine somewhere between Wonder Woman, Dr. Strange and a Muse. In Books 3 & 4, Moore basically puts the main plot on hold and sends his characters on an Alice in Wonderland like journey through the houses of the Qabalah. Even if you don't know the story up to this point, you can track the ideas... and I think Moore does a pretty great job of really breathing life into the whole concept, finding just exactly the right references to drive the essential concepts home. (I'd already done some study on the Qabalah when I first started reading this, and it was full of moments of "V-8" headslappery for me.)
"v-8 style head slappery" ha. how do you come up with this shit?
anyway thanks for the references... not sure how i may come across those books but we'll see.
have you ever read six memos for the next millenium? the calvino jawn? i have been skimming portions of it for years. it's pretty on point.
I'm gonna have to look for it... at least from that wiki, it sounds like Calvino is sneaking up on his own, typically unique, typically post-modern/post-structuralist/post-everything spin on the underlying principles of reality, a new brand of alchemical thinking.
V-8: It's like Satori... in a can!