A being who, as I grew older, lost imagination, emotion, a type of intelligence, a way of feeling things - all that which, while it made me sorry, did not horrify me. But what am I experiencing when I read myself as if I were someone else? On which bank am I standing if I see myself in the depths?
Interpretation
The quote reflects on self-perception and the loss of emotional depth with age.
In this contemplative quote, Fernando Pessoa explores the complexities of self-identity and introspection as one ages. He illustrates a sense of loss regarding imagination and emotional intelligence, while also questioning the nature of his own existence and perception, wondering how one can observe oneself from an external standpoint and what that reveals about their inner depths.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a philosophical discussion on the nature of self and identity.
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.
When you are Real, shabbiness doesn't matter.
In the plays - that's where I go crazy. But my prose has a much lighter touch; it's not trying to thrill with language, just to be more truthful. I'm not concerned with the accuracy of anything. We don't get to the truth of anything with facts.
Do not surrender your grief so quickly Let it cut more deeply Let it ferment and season you As few human or divine ingredients can Something is missing in my heart tonight That has made my eyes so soft And my voice so tender And my need of God so absolutely clear.
It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.
At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being
Only the consciousness of a purpose that is mightier than any man and worthy of all men can fortify and inspirit and compose the souls of men.
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