There's a tiredness of abstract inteligence, and it's the most horrible of tirednesses. It doesn't weight on you like the tiredness of the body, nor does it worry you like the tiredness of knowledge and emotion. It's a weightiness of the conscience of the world, an inability of the soul to breathe.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the exhaustion brought about by deep awareness and understanding of the world.
Fernando Pessoa articulates a unique perspective on fatigue, distinguishing it from physical or emotional tiredness. He suggests that the weariness stemming from abstract intelligence and philosophical contemplation is particularly profound, as it arises from a heavy conscience and the weight of existential awareness, inhibiting one's ability to find peace and breathe freely in the world.
In practice
In a discussion about the challenges of intellectual pursuits, this quote can underscore how deep thinking can lead to existential fatigue.
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.
Even two of humanity's most intimate possessions - a sense of self and a body image - are fluid, highly modifiable creations of the brain's mischievous deployment of electricity and a handful of chemicals. They both can change or be changed on less than a second's notice.
You're a slave, a bound helpless slave to one thing in the world, your imagination.
When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary; when morals are insufficient, law is unenforceable.
I mean that you always know what results will come from one or another of your actions; but in a strange way you want to do one thing and get the result that could only come from another
But once in a while the odd thing happens _x000D_ Once in a while the dream comes true _x000D_ And the whole pattern of life is altered _x000D_ Once in a while, the moon turns blue
Thinking is no more than a tiny aspect of the totality of consciousness, the totality of who you are.
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