When Looking at Romance Between Lightness and Heaviness.

-1.

Q. I feel like my boyfriend doesn't love me. He doesn't pick up when I call, he's lukewarm no matter what I say, and his affection for me seems to have cooled—what should I do?

A1. Break up right now. The guy's affection for you has cooled.

A2. Try talking it through well~ Maybe your boyfriend is having a hard time, that could be it

A3. Break up. What's there to agonize over—it seems like you, the writer, have already turned your heart away, which is why you're writing a post like this

0.

Suddenly I felt like writing about that situation. If I wanted to pin down a reason, reasons are plentiful, but I don't think I need to write out a long-winded reason; I just feel like jotting down a story about this kind of situation. This story is just an extremely common, common story, and the way of coping with that story can also commonly differ. So I want to write it down.

1.

The responses to that situation each differ, so I'll just write down my subjective thoughts.

A1 seems to hold the mindset of breaking up if, viewed from one's own values, the other person's attitude isn't an 'affectionate attitude.'

A2 seems to hold the mindset of trying to look at what kind of situation the other person's attitude is in, from the other person's standpoint.

A3 seems to hold the value that, regardless of the other person's attitude, with a heart that has already started wanting to put things in order, rather than suffer it's better to put things in order quickly.

If I could agree with the saying that the 'lightness' Parmenides spoke of is positive and 'heaviness' is negative, I would, without hesitation, try to live the A1 way. In fact, if you think of the world 'centered on me,' it's easy to judge anything. You don't have to try to step into the other person's values, and you don't have to strain and force yourself to try to understand the other person's heart.

A3 is a little different. The A3 I interpreted, I saw as breaking up because, thinking of oneself getting heavy and seeing that future, one figures it's better to break up. After the movie Inception came out, 'agreement' with such thoughts seems to have increased—once a thought begins to sprout, erasing that thought isn't easy. Harder than a thought growing is not thinking the thought that has just begun to grow. Because you can't go back to the past and stop the thought from growing again, 'important thoughts' that have once begun to grow don't easily leave the mind. So it can only remain in the mind for a while, continually coming to mind.

A2 tries to understand the other person, whether heavy or light. For a relationship to go long, if you want it to go long, both people need to have this kind of mindset. Of course, a lot of conversation must naturally follow, and if you only think and can't unburden those things to each other, this won't last long. That's because I suspect the probability of reaching the conclusion to break up is just as high as the probability of reaching a positive conclusion after long deliberation. Looking at it so far it seems to have been about fifty-fifty, both looking at my friends and looking at my own case. In the end you have to talk.

2.

When you read Milan Kundera's 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being,' the theme that appears most often is precisely 'lightness' and 'heaviness.' Parmenides said 'lightness' is positive, but the author, speaking of Beethoven's life, cites a German phrase interpreted as 'it must always be so' to say that 'heaviness' too can be positive. In fact, I suspect he suspends the value judgment about the two values—namely 'lightness' and 'heaviness'—and leaves it to the reader, and the reason for that is that the lives of the protagonists Tomas, Tereza, Sabina, and Franz end while moving somewhere along the straight line between heaviness and lightness.

As for why on earth the story of lightness and heaviness comes up—in fact, for people whose value for how to live their lives is already set, 'romance' isn't the issue. They merely practice their own way. But as for why it's between lightness and heaviness, it's because any person is positioned on a 'vertical line' with lightness and heaviness as the two extremes. In my opinion, that's how it is.

3.

If I were to pick a few things that are worse this year than last year, the very first I'd pick is 'fine dust,' and the second I'd pick is 'couple marketing.' I feel the total volume of 'couple marketing' has increased beyond what I'd thought. Places like fishing cafes have sprung up as novel date spots, most amusement parks are running discount events targeting 'couples,' and restaurants run discount events when 2 or more people come, and so on—in Korean society, rather than marketing for 'doing something alone' increasing, marketing for 'doing things as a pair' is on the rise. Of course, separately from this, products for specific demand groups, such as appliances for single-person households—for example single-person washing machines—are coming out, but that itself doesn't become 'marketing.' In fact, from a company's standpoint this is a decent marketing strategy. Because compared to just one person coming, when 'two people' come together you can use space far more efficiently, the profit rate rises, and the cost going into marketing can be lowered further. Personalized advertising has limits. But I think 'couple-tailored' advertising has no limits. Even if a particular couple both dislike a particular ad, I think the probability of recognizing and remembering that ad is higher precisely because they're a couple.

4..

What has increased just as much is people who are dating. If a proper book defining these dating people came out, that book would probably bring in enough money to play and live off for a lifetime, but since it seems no one has yet seen a book surpassing Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, many people still read that book. It's the most primitive method, but this book—which contains the principle that men tend to resolve their emotions 'alone' while women tend to resolve their emotions 'together'—I'm not sure whether it's still prominent in bookstores now, but it's clearly a book that broadens one's perspective on relationships considerably. But there's still no book that tells someone positioned between lightness and heaviness what decision is the wisest to make. There are books that tell you, but they can't help but be books not for 'oneself.' Because that would be a judgment positioned upon someone else's lightness and heaviness, and that judgment and standard would differ from individual to individual.

5.

I, who write like this, tend to think of romance heavily. The image of being heavy—since being heavy is usually easy to associate with 'big,' I perceive this part as close to 'heavy.' But in the end, since all language is generated and used based on 'arbitrariness,' associating it this way is also only 'arbitrary' and cannot be absolute.

In 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being,' Sabina wanted to become endlessly light, but all that remained at the end was emptiness, while on the other hand Tomas had the thought of wanting to become heavy but couldn't. There's no value judgment in lightness and heaviness. It's merely one person's choice and the 'feeling,' 'familiarity,' and 'unfamiliarity' about that choice—that's why there's no story as personal as 'romance.' My choice may change a little by listening to others' advice, but the particular 'thought' that strongly came to me at the very first is a matter that rests with my dating partner and me, not a matter that friends can decide. If you wish friends would decide for you, in many cases it's because you're not confident about your own problem and want to seek others' advice, or it's just too hard to decide yourself so you wish someone else would decide, or else it's because someone else seems to really understand your dating situation well—but whatever the 'decision,' the burden is borne by oneself. Even if you follow someone else's decision, the 'result' of that decision is borne by oneself. So in the end the person to ask is already set. The other person and my own self.