Lightness, weight and eternal return

THIS WEEK’S WINNER

MANILA, Philippines - Zarri Juevi, a passionate student, is a poet in three languages — English, traditional Mandarin and ancient Tagalog — and has been a writer since the age of 11. Her biggest dream is for the Filipinos to return to writing in Baybayin nationally so that the Filipinos would reclaim the exquisitely beautiful pre-colonial identity that it has so seemingly lost.

The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum! What does this mad myth signify?”

Thus embarks the novel of Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, originally written in Czech, translated to French, and now offered to us in English directly from the Czech by translator Michael Henry Heim. The novel is one of the Perennial Classics of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. and is a distinctive international bestseller.Let us revisit the novel’s opening expression, quoted above. Yes, what does this mad myth signify? The idea of everything recurring ad infinitum — eternal return — is a concept that stems from Indian, ancient Egyptian, and Greek philosophies. After its decline with the spread of Christianity, it was resurrected by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th century. Eternal return posits that the universe recurs an infinite number of times, wherein humans relive their daily lives for an eternity, wherein the phrase “history repeats itself” is taken in its most literal sense.

I was struck by this idea of eternal return and took it into Philippine contextualization. In my mind, I envisioned the rope-bound Jose Rizal as he twisted to face the Spanish firing squad happening a million times throughout history. From this perspective, would a Filipino such as I still magnify this man as a national emblem, heroically “turning his other cheek,” or does he merely become a prisoner absorbing a million Spanish bullets with the stubbornness of his human pride?

Had Lapu-Lapu vanquished Magellan a thousand times at the shores of Mactan, would historians still consider the successful aversion of Spanish colonial power by the early Filipinos as being simply fortuitous?

How about an overlooked rape-murder case that happened behind a factory in a remote barangay? If that hapless event recurred ad infinitum, would the blood spilt that cold night still remain unworthy of remark in the history books of the Philippines?

I came to realize that the idea of eternal return, suggesting the amalgamation of a glut ball of infinite recurrences in eternity, has a completely altered meaning, significance, and fortuity from the first singular wisp of that event.

Life happens but once. Yet, the German adage states: “What happens but once might as well not have happened at all.” Putting the two together — life might as well not have happened at all. Life is a sketch for nothing. There is no trial and error. There is only an actor going on stage cold, unrehearsed. The spotlight switches on; the actor instinctively rummages the stage like a mad puppet, begs in his heart for meaning, but still cannot find it.

Kundera says, “Life that happens only once carries no weight.”

Hence, we experience the unbearable lightness of being.

Kundera merges his astutely philosophical mind with his talent for storytelling. Weaved into the main fabric of the novel is Kundera’s authorial voice mulling over the contentions of lightness versus weight. At the outset, Kundera admits that he cannot decide which is positive and which is negative: lightness or weight. The book instead explores both sides in the intertwining lives of Tomas the surgeon, Tereza the former-waitress, Sabrina the painter, Franz the professor, and Karenin the dog, through vivid and sensual accounts of bed scenes, political upheavals, dreams, travels, letters, etcetera, exhibited with the persisting theme of European literary, musical, cultural elements such as Beethoven’s symphonies, Tolstoy’s novels, and Kafka’s thoughts.

As a reader, I felt strong human connections with Kundera’s characters because they seemed to be extensions of the author himself. They were thought experiments of what Kundera might have been like as this or that person. And that highly interested the schizophrenic-potential side of me. (Just joking.)

In one of Kundera’s imaginative philosophical dissertations, he discussed the world of Kitsch. Kitsch was the world wherein shit did not exist. It was utopia. But obviously, you and I live in a world opposite to Kitsch. We live in dirty reality. We live in the Philippines. This is anti-Kitsch land. We have shit here.

In this country, there are disheveled children begging in the streets, humans living in garbage dumps like enlarged worms, gray pollution clouds sputtering into the air, sparkly prostitution bars, fraudulent government officials, broken families, floods, disease, hunger, clogged sewage, and the Pasig River.

We don’t like this world of anti-Kitsch. It is unbearable. But the Filipinos must cope with it through the two sides of the unbearable coin.

Lightness.

You know what that is: nonsensical songs blasting on the radio, charity-TV-shows poking fun at their contestants in dire attempts at humor, radio programs where the DJ keeps laughing for no reason, tells lewd jokes, and overall displays a degenerated mind, gambling with feathered birds, sniffing rugby in paper bags — the gamut of forget-your-problems-or-laugh-at-them Filipino culture.

Weight.

Here is the other side of the Filipino battle against anti-Kitsch: shouting, literally and figuratively. We scream and we scream through music, journalism, art, theater, film, and so on — we scream just like that naked Tereza in bed with Tomas.

Kundera writes: “It was no sigh, no moan; it was a real scream… The scream was not an expression of sensuality. Sensuality is the total mobilization of the senses: an individual observes his partner intently, straining to catch every sound. But her scream aimed at crippling the senses, preventing all seeing and hearing.”

Isn’t that what we are doing: crippling our senses? Laughter is not the best medicine for this country’s ailments. Forgetting won’t help. (Kundera also has books called The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and one called The Joke. How pertinent!)

Let’s take our hands off our eyes. Let’s face the pain.

Must we live through eternal return to feel the consequences of momentary flight from our problems? Must history repeat itself a million times before we spot the futility of shutting our eyes and screaming wildly in the face of a million bullets? Will a thousand obstinately dignified Rizals demonstrate the boldness with which we ought to face the enemies of poverty, corruption, and ignorance? Would a billion assassinated Ninoy Aquinos equal the innate value of each living Filipino person?

The Filipino does carry weight, whether he recurs for eternity or whether this lifetime is his only shot. One drop of Filipino blood. One Filipino scream. One Filipino life. One foreign novel to prod us. Those are enough.

We do not need eternal return. We need to awaken to unbearable reality.