Esoteric & Based Memo #14
The Fourteenth
1. A Book
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, 1984
(originally translated from Czech)
Dare I say a classic? Philosophically accessible yet astute, this masterful novel follows the lives of two men, two women, and a dog during the 1968 Prague Spring period in Czechoslovakia.
I first came across the title on my parents’ bookshelf as a teen, and it seared into my brain - the concept of “the unbearable lightness of being” has rattled around in my skull ever since. It is a feeling. It also incongruously reminds me of one of my favourite quotes by Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
Ultimately, the title and the story are apt explorations of what it means to be human; to navigate this brief blip of time that is our human consciousness expressed through living in relation to others and the world around us, with all the heaviness, pain, grief, loss and grace, love, pleasure, joy that comes with it.
“In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.”
“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.”
“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”
“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”
2. An Artwork
I’m breaking my own self-imposed rule not to feature more than one example of an artwork, but I think it's very healthy (read: necessary) to break rules (especially self-imposed ones) once in a while. So, here you have not one, but three examples of the work of Nan Goldin, artist and activist.
I use the word artist and not photographer on purpose; the former can easily be the latter, but the latter is more and more rarely the former, at least since Instagram dot com had its boom. What separates Goldin is not only her pre-internet purity but also the rawness of her subject matter and her participation in the world that she captured.
Her photographs are like pages of a diary, sharing the intimacy of ordinary connections, underground queer culture, the dizzing freedom and joyful abandon of self-expression, and just like, being with friends. She subverted the typical art hierarchies, showing her work in her loft in NYC as well as nightclubs and bars in the late 70s and 80s, where the audience consisted “entirely of the people in the slide show, my lovers and friends.”
Most of her career has been defined by activism within her community, first, in the late 80s, around the AIDS crisis, and then later, in 2017, around the opioid crisis and now in 2025, around the genocide in Palestine.
Perhaps a true artist can be defined as an individual whose aesthetic/tangible work almost comes secondary to, or rather as an outcome of, their state of Being. Their state of Being is one of open-heartedness, and this open-heartedness not only requires a creative channel but also inevitably a subversive interaction with the oppressive powers at large (there are many battles; I argue that it is part of an artist’s vocation to connect to their hearts, discern and subvert). Thereby, to be an artist is to be in direct communication with your heart; the resulting ‘work’ being a direct extension of those open meridians. Nan Goldin does this well.
3. A Quote/Poem
How To Not Be a Perfectionist
People are vivid
and small
and don’t live
very long—
- Molly Brodak
4. An Audio
I first came across Holland Andrews’ music during the early Pandemic. This song became a lifeline of sorts for me. About a year later, I was very lucky to lead a virtual restorative yoga and guided meditation session with Holland performing live alongside me. It was a dream, as is their music.
“a composer, vocalist, clarinettist, and improviser whose work focuses on generating expansive tapestries of cathartic and dissonant soundscapes. Frequently highlighting themes surrounding vulnerability, healing, and transformation, Andrews composes music with their voice, clarinet, and electronics to serve as a vessel for these themes.”
5. A Place
Archaeological Park of Pompeii, Napoli, Italy.
The awe-inspiring power of nature meets tragic history meets raw, real Italy.
6. A Film
A Portrait of a Lady on Fire by Céline Sciamma, 2019
A forbidden lesbian love affair between the painter and the painted, set in France in the late 18th century. Beautiful, haunting, tear-jerker.
i think often of this state of being, and then, when i finally stop thinking, i’m lucky enough to embody it.