Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).
Loneliness is the awareness of being incomplete because you lack the other who is supposed to make you whole. The desire for the other is always desire for wholeness. Love is the encounter of two wholes. If it is a lie that attracts us to another person, it is because we do not yet recognize that the other is a lie. The fantasy lover is always perfect. The real person is imperfect, and their imperfections, if we allow them to, interfere with our dreams. But this is not a tragedy, it is merely a cruel reminder of what we are. The heavy eyelids of despair prevent us from seeing clearly: the distinction between a dream and a lie. A dream is a fantasy, a lie is an intention. Perfection stinks of intention. Perfection is unattainable, which means it is a lie. But it is a lie that makes us slaves. It makes us dependent on the person who embodies the lie. It makes us weak.
And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or loneliness? But it is not so simple. Once you are free, you struggle to keep from becoming a slave again. And the weight of slavery is heavier than the weight of freedom. To be free means to be responsible, without excuses and without help from others. It is to walk naked and vulnerable, without the protective cloaks of pride or power. It is to stand in the wind and embrace the sun, without the protection of your shadow. To be free is to accept the responsibility of your own destiny, and with it the realization that you can never be perfect, only whole.
Milan Kundera
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Three, Chapter One
