Muss es sein? (Must it be?)

So I spent my one week break reading, amongst other things. Browsed through the row of books sitting on my desk, unread, half-read and collecting dust. Many were bought on impulse at book fairs or sales, painstakingly wrapped in book wrapper after I lugged them home and then arranged neatly on my desk. I believe there is a Japanese word for this; tsundoku ("つんどく") - it's a noun and essentially means to buy books and not read them. There is no English equivalent that I know of.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, and a hot cup of mint tea in a cute mug

Somehow I decided on this, a book twice abandoned, unfinished. I was determined to finish it this third time.

I must say it took me much longer than usual to finish a book of this length; it's not a very thick book after all. And I'd be lying if I said I understood everything the author wrote about. I don't think I have a very philosophical turn of mind, and there were parts I struggled to understand. Some quotes that resonated with me:

"We can never know what we want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come."

"Human life occurs only once, and the reason we cannot determine which of our decisions are good and which is bad is that in a given situation we can make only one decision; we are not granted a second, third or fourth life in which to compare various decisions."

"He suddenly recalled the famous myth from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split them in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost."

"We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions - love, antipathy, charity, or malice - and what part is predetermined by the constant power play among individuals. True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can only come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy."