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Living The Book of DisquietAuthor: Fernando Pessoa
Every so often, I sit down and write a letter to Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet and writer. I not only write but also send each letter to the postal address where Pessoa spent the last fifteen years of his life before dying at the age of 47 with cirrhosis of the liver - most likely due to alcoholism. He hasn't written back to me yet, even though I put my own name and address on every missive I send. One day he, or someone very much like him, will perhaps write back. I live in hope. Language: en Genres: Personal Journals, Society & Culture Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Pessoa, c'est nous?
Friday, 14 November, 2025
Good morning FP,I was lying in bed half an hour ago wondering if I should stop writing to you, stop trying to connect to another human being through the medium of writing. For this is a peculiar game I am playing here am I not? A man sees another man standing in a clearing talking to a tree. He gets a bit closer and recognises that the tree is a kind of proxy for the conversations this man maybe wishes to have with another. So he approaches the man and offers him an ear: talk to me and I will respond as another man might, or even as a tree, he says.Alternately, a man sees another man standing in a clearing talking to a tree. How peculiar, he thinks, and walks on, leaving the man and the tree to whatever understanding they might learn to glean from each other.Perhaps this is your response to my fable, a poem from 1933?The master without discipleshad a flawed machine.Despite its levers and gearsit never did anything.It served as a barrel organwhen there was no one to hear it.When silent, it tried to look curious,but no one came near it.My soul, rather like that machine,is flawed, complicated, erratic,and serves no purpose at all.
