I am the escaped one, After I was born They locked me up inside me But I left. My soul seeks me, Through hills and valley, I hope my soul Never finds me.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a struggle between the self and the inner psyche, highlighting the search for identity and freedom.
In this quote, Fernando Pessoa expresses a profound internal conflict, where the speaker feels imprisoned by their own existence yet longs for freedom and self-discovery. The imagery of hills and valleys suggests a deep journey through life's complexities, with the hope that the true self remains elusive, symbolizing the tension between the conscious and unconscious aspects of identity.
In practice
In a discussion about personal growth and self-awareness, this quote can illustrate the challenges of understanding one's true self.
I have at this moment so many fundamental thoughts, so many truly metaphysical things to say, that I suddenly get tired and decide not to write any more, not to think any more, but to allow the fever of speaking to make me sleepy, and with my eyes closed, like a cat, I play with everything I could have said.
It's been months since I last wrote. I've lived in a state of mental slumber, leading the life of someone else. I've felt, very often, a vicarious happiness. I haven't existed. I've been someone else. I've lived without thinking.
We all have two lives: The true, the one we dreamed of in childhood And go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin.
I'm a man for whom the outside world is an inner Reality.
My dreams are a stupid refuge, like an umbrella against a thunderbolt.
The chill of what I won't feel gnaws at my present heart.
Good people can't out-think evil, cause evil thinks of things good folks can't think of.
Grief, of course, is not something that operates according to a specific time frame, and it seems cold to suggest otherwise. Yet when we do not grasp that God is present in pain, we eventually insist on victory or, worse, blame the sufferer for not "getting over it" fast enough. This is more than a failure to extend compassion; it's an exercise in cruelty.
When a woman confuses what she is with what she wears, then something is wrong inside.
That taxes may be the ostensible cause is true, but that they are the true cause is as far remote from truth as light from darkness.
Once, during the drinking phase, Wendy had accused him of desiring his own destruction but not possessing the necessary moral fiber to support a full-blown deathwish. So he manufactured ways in which other people could do it, lopping a piece at a time off himself and their family.
For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation.
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