On Lightness and Weight

The world is a trap. Now that’s a statement. This is perhaps one of the most striking things Milan Kundera has said in his novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” On the other side of this statement is the fact that man has free will. He can make his own choices particular to his own liking on how he would want his own circumstances to turn out. But there’s a problem. Man has no control on all things. That is how the trap sets in. Perhaps the trap is free will itself. Nature throws anything it desires at us and we can do nothing about it. We have no control over what people do, say, and we have the least say on how they would affect us. We may have control on the affective level (emotional and mental) but with particular actions such us giving of sarcastic remarks, bad-mouthing, ruining our territories and personal spaces...they will do what they want and force their own free will. Now we have another trap, one thing we would have to go with the flow with or struggle against and anything in between. The world’s a whole jungle of free wills preying on one another for survival making the whole picture a set of trap. Even if man did not possess free will, the setting would be a trap because he’s forced to do what he is hard-wired to do. Being in trap is perhaps nature’s call. One might as well say that the whole universe is a trap.
On lightness—isn’t that supposed to be a great feeling? The term itself suggests ease. In the end it bites back though. Like any very light object carried in the wind, a man cuts every attachment to society, allowing himself to move on from one thing to another easily. This though means one has nothing to look back on, no past to hold on to and life loses it meaning. It is in attaching ourselves into something concrete that we find meaning in our lives. It is without concretion that we find ourselves easily moving along and we have to move on from our past right? The past though is what makes us. We are what we are because of what we were. After all, we need not detach ourselves from the past to be able to move on. Maturity and constant learning are the two things necessary to move on from a painful past or grow out of a childish one and so on. Is it better to be heavy then since it’s okay? Not so much. Holding on to what is and what was does not do so well. Neither does holding fast on what is yet to come. Things need to be open in order to move through life and heavy attachment defeats this need. Either way, meaning is found on heaviness but man is particularly light because escape is the most deluding of all and that is found in lightness. We need meaning and concretion but want escape. In the end, we find ourselves in the trap of our own selves. What a pity for man!
We need to grow out our immaturities though and escape escapism, learn which things to hold on to and which ones to let go. I wouldn’t exactly patronize Tomas because of his vive but I would say that he is the best character among all because of his flexibility. To be able to freely course through life, we would need that resiliency learned through time. It is only by experience after all that we find out which we personally need. The least we can do is think things over carefully. What has man to do but think, work, love, and have faith anyway? It is perhaps best if we have faith in ourselves, our own decisions and find meaning within us. It is we that gives meaning to things after all.