I reread this formidable The Book of Disquiet and feel compelled to toast it with a few words. Impresses not only its originality, but also the poet’s unique ability to sustain the atmosphere that is characteristic of him. Alternating descriptions and thoughts, revealing an entire inner universe of a very ordinary “bookkeeper’s assistant” from Lisbon, there are three hundred and fifty harmonious, rhythmic pages that express a meditative mental state and a very refined perception. The poet manages to be acute, powerful, and sometimes cruel without seeming so, in a prose so beautiful that it blinds itself against any repulsive sentiment and soothes the reader’s spirit. Great art, great philosophy, immortal pages. Hail, Pessoa!
Utopia Is to Become a Complete Stranger
Utopia is to become a complete stranger. To wake up in a metropolis and go out into the street without a good morning interrupting the morning flow of thought. In the afternoon, the freedom for the mind to continue its path in silence, and in the evening, peace to think. No phone calls, no exchanges of words, nothing. Impossible, of course. Otherwise, It would not have to idealize paradise at all.
Philosophy Is Mediocre When It Is Reduced to a Rhetorical Contest
Philosophy is mediocre when it is reduced to a rhetorical contest. It loses its distinctive character and becomes as shallow as a political debate. The philosopher gives up sincerity for eloquence; he spends his spirit on the vilest convince. How exhausts the empty discussions about “systems”, about “methods”, about the “errors” of others, when the effort would be much better spent, even as a demonstration of respect for philosophy, in individualizing and strengthening the expressiveness of one’s own perception.
There Are Adapted and Maladapted Human Beings
There are adapted and maladapted human beings, satisfied and unhappy, those who enjoy life and those who find it a nuisance. Those who live, those who think; comfort, discomfort; hope, delusion. There may be, in the human being, both dimensions; it may be that there are none. It is strange to observe the veiled consensus that there is a “normal”. The real question is: how to conduct the different and very natural mental dispositions? By answering it, we will notice that value is extracted from both equilibrium and chaos.