Arquivo de Notes | Page 241 of 282

The Human Being Does Not Change His Essence

“Becoming a better person” demands a merciless and continuous inner annihilation, a humility and a self-denial that borders on repugnance, a superhuman effort to silence the insistent and natural voice of vanity, which manifests itself as soon as the being recognizes his capacity to think. Since this is an almost unfeasible task, since it demands the confrontation of hard battles that never end, it is wise to say that, after adulthood, the human being does not change his essence, even if he wants to, even if he tries, even if he believes.

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What Is Called “Society” Requires the Representation of a Role

What is called “society” requires the representation of a role from everyone. And freedom begins after this refusal. Brilliantly exposed by Jung is the irreconcilable clash between the collective and the individual psyche, which leads the human being to one between two alternatives: either to repress his individuality and become a socially accepted sheep or to break with society and suffer the consequences of this decision. There is no escape, the existence of “society” induces an active posture, if not of acceptance, of refusal. So we can see which decision is the easiest and infinitely more profitable. On the other hand, it remains evident which human beings are intellectually worthy of respect—and which are not.

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The Lyrical Love Poetry Is Doomed to Disappear

The lyrical love poetry, if not dead, is doomed to disappear. This is undoubtedly the conclusion that screams after an accurate observation of the last decades. What happened was not a change in the character of relationships, but a definitive burial of how much served as inspiration for the verses that no longer touch. I could cite current thinking, the socially accepted psyche preacher of detachment. But this is too fragile, only applicable as a mask of the individual psyche and only relevant as a manifestation of hypocrisy. What happens, however, is that people have become dishes on a menu always online and accessible to a touch. Distance, fear of loss, and especially lack of means and options have always acted as fortifiers of a relationship, despite appearances. The lament, in a verse, is nothing but the expression of affection for someone who looks special and irreplaceable. Today, all this is over. And if the present century seems to have evolved, we will see how it will react when exposed to the terrible and immense emptiness opened up by the mass loss of affective bonds—once the fulcrums of meaning,—by the endorsement of false solutions and the gradual dehumanization of human beings. I imagine frightened children clogging up the psychological clinics…

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Those Who Seem to Live a Lot Live Very Little

I beat these notes, always, in a static environment, in complete solitude. Everything rigorously immobile, except my naughty fingers. Just now, I thought of Fernando Pessoa. To my amazement, he appeared alive at my side. How? That is what I would like to know. I had thought, just before, of writing the following: “Existence is only justifiable to me as an answer to the authors I read, as the continuity of what they began.” And I would conclude that, despite being dead, they did not die. Then Pessoa bursts into my room. It is curious: a century ago, he was, like me, locked in a room in any corner of Lisbon, reflecting in solitude. Did he know the power of his verses? that they would resist, vigorously, the tyranny of time? He knew… Pessoa knew… And, naturally, in the eyes of the world, locked in a room, the poet “was not living”. I ask: and now, and for the rest of eternity, who lives and will live more: the guy who “lived,” or the poet who “was not living”? A century later, Pessoa, breaking the barrier of time and space, finds himself in my room. And if I open his Ode Marítima, I will be taken by a real and strong euphoria, more alive than any other sensation that a contemporary person could give me. And that is obvious: live little—very, very little—precisely those who seem to live a lot, in the eyes of conventional myopia…

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