For a long time now I haven't existed. I'm utterly calm. No one distinguishes me from who I am. I just felt myself breath as if I'd done something ne… - Fernando Pessoa
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For a long time now I haven't existed. I'm utterly calm. No one distinguishes me from who I am. I just felt myself breath as if I'd done something new, or done it late. I'm beginning to be conscious of being conscious. Perhaps tomorrow I will wake up to myself and resume the course of my existence. I don't know if that will make more happy or less. I don't know anything.
English
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About
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando Pessoa (13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet and writer, most of whose work was published posthumously. He wrote frequently under heteronyms, alter egos with developed personalities, biographies, jobs, habits, attitudes, addresses, etc., who sometimes quoted and interacted with each other and other people.
Portrait adapted from
Wikimedia Commons, S.A. e Maria José de Lencastre (Public domain / CC0)
Also Known As
Pen Names:
Alberto Caeiro
•
Álvaro de Campos
•
Ricardo Reis
•
Bernardo Soares
Native Name:
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa
Alternative Names:
Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa
I never had anyone I could call "Master". No Christ died for me. No Buddha showed me the right path. In the depths of my dreams no Apollo or Athena appeared to me to enlighten my soul
It's not demons (who at least have a human face) but Hell itself that seems to be laughing inside me, it's the croaking madness of the dead universe, the spinning cadaver of physical space, the end of all worlds blowing blackly in the wind, formless and timeless, without a God who created it, without even its own self, impossibly whirling in the absolute darkness as the one and only reality, everything.
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That is how I experience life, as apocalypse and cataclysm. Each day brings an increasing inability in myself to make the smallest gesture, even to imagine myself confronting clear, real situations. The presence of others — always such an unexpected event for the soul — grows daily more painful and distressing. Talking to others makes me shudder. If they show any interest in me, I flee. If they look at me, I tremble. I am constantly on the defensive. Life and other people bruise me. I can't look reality in the eye.
