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.
For many years, I have lived uncomfortably with the belief that most planning and architectural design suffers for lack of real and basic purpose. The ultimate purpose, it seems to me, must be the improvement of mankind.
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself.
When you confer a benefit on those worthy of it, you confer a favor on all.
If in a country, most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, then this country can hardly witness harmony and stability.
Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.
I never used to believe in fate. I used to think you make your own life and then you call it fate. That's why I call it irony.
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