Vertigo

I find it fitting to start my first blog with Milan Kundera and a little Nietsche.

'Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.'-Milan Kundera, 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'

'When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.' -Friedrich Nietzsche

I have been pondering these quotations recently largely because of their growing relevance, the way they speak to me. I decided long ago to live my life in such a way that i would never rely or depend too heavily on anyone...never have burdens, in other words, to be as light as a feather. and i thought that it would be easier than living with burdens and connections. well, as far as i was concerned, living the opposite way didn't work, and though loyal i have this overwhelming desire to be free and thus retreat rapidly from any potentially claustrophobic situation. as you can imagine, it can be rather damaging to relationships. However, recently there has been a beckoning from below to fall from my perch.

In the opening pages of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera ponders the complexity of the two extremes, living a burdened life, or living a light, carefree one, and he questions the notion that lightness would be truly be best, for surely a life without any burden becomes meaningless, and in this emptiness, unbearable.

I, for one, have always had problems with strong emotions. i have a tendency to bottle them up and then to release them in one explosive BANG. Intimacy, and the trust that necessarily comes with it, has always been an issue. As soon as the chances of intimacy become too great, i pick up and ship off.

However, even birds need to come to the ground sometimes, and it was only a matter of time before i would look into the abyss below and feel the desire to fall fall fall into it - vertigo (see Kundera's quote above). And i have, and that dark billowing darkness is beckoning to me. And the more i stare at it, the more it stares at me and so we are locked in a fierce battle of wills and forces, or to be precise, i am locked in a fierce battle of wills...to fall or not to fall. To jump or not to jump. even more existentially, to be or not to be.