The Terrible Paradox of Self-Awareness | Fernando Pessoa

this video is sponsored by blinkist here's the link in the description and you'll receive one free week and 25 off an annual premium membership sometimes the story behind a work of art is just as fascinating as the work itself sometimes its origin is part of its content the story of 20th century writer Fernando passoa and his Masterwork the book of disquiet is one of those cases where the story behind it sounds like a work of fiction itself pasoa was born in 1888 in Lisbon Portugal at the early age of just five years old he was

exposed to loss and impermanence when his father died of tuberculosis and then the following year his younger brother died not long after his mother remarried and his family moved to South Africa also taking from Fernando the landscape of his childhood while living in South Africa basso became fluent in English and developed an appreciation for English literature when he turned 17 he returned to Lisbon by himself where he would spend the rest of his life and dedicate most of his time to writing however by the time he died in 1935 at the age of 47 he

had only published a few books that went mostly unnoticed and he essentially wrote in complete obscurity Unknown by anyone but yet he seemingly died knowing that he was a great literary figure or at the very least that he would likely become one and in an almost unsettling prophetic way he was right after his death pessoa's work the manuscript of the book of disquiet along with tens of thousands of other manuscript pages that are still to this day being edited remain tucked away in a wooden trunk Unknown by anyone it wasn't until 1982 47 years after

pasoa died eerily the exact same age of pasoa when he died that the book of disquiet was found and published this book would go on to become what is widely regarded as one of the most unique and important literary works of the 20th century inside the book is a lifetime worth of basoa's Reflections and musings about reality and dreaming about tedium and selfhood about the absurdity of being and the futility of doing about the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of Life about the contradiction and Paradox at the core of everything the book is made up of

a collection of fragmented vignettes written in a style somewhere between diary entries and poetry there is no real linear order to the book and it can arguably be experienced just as well backwards as forwards even more interesting but SOA does not claim to be the author of any of it rather it is credited to a man named Bernardo Suarez an assistant bookkeeper from Lisbon Portugal as well as possibly a man named Vicente gueres Juarez and soras however aren't real they are characters pesoa created to create the book found throughout the massive collection of all of

pasoa's manuscript pages are various pseudonyms fictitious authors that he credits different pages and collections to these authors aren't just different pen names though they are different characters with different writing styles and personalities and Views and backstories pasoa referred to these author characters as heteronims and there were around 80 that he rode under throughout his lifetime thus the book of disquiet is not exactly a non-fiction book from an anonymous author but nor is it really a novel about a fictional character or story it is somewhere in between because of this it is often described as the

weirdest autobiography ever written but SOA himself described it as a factless autobiography or an autobiography of someone who never existed the book's unique structure and style is in many ways an essential supporting leg of the book's themes the use of heteronim seems to reinforce a key philosophical theme throughout the work the fragmented and illusory nature of the self with Incredible accuracy and poignancy that feels cathartic to read throughout the book but SOA frequently describes the inherent alienation disorientation and loneliness associated with being a person he wrote I don't know how to feel or think or

love I'm a character in a novel as yet Unwritten hovering in the air and undone before I've even existed amongst the dreams of someone who never quite managed to breathe life into me I'm always thinking always feeling but my thoughts lack all reason my emotions all feeling I'm falling through a trapdoor through Infinite Space in a directionless empty fall my soul is a black Maelstrom a great Madness spinning about a vacuum the swirling of a vast ocean around a hole in the void and in the waters more like whirlwinds than Waters float images of all

I ever saw or heard in the world houses faces books boxes snatches of music and fragments of voices all caught up in a Sinister bottomless whirlpool and I I myself am the center that exists only because the geometry of the Abyss demands it I am the nothing around which all this spins I exist so that it can spin I am the center that exists only because every Circle has one for pesoa self-understanding or perhaps the attempt to understand the self is a free fall down a rabbit hole with the landing that kills you and the

impossibility of understanding and communicating one's internal experiences while on this free fall lends itself to a lifetime of disquiet and disorientation throughout the book pasoa also often discusses themes of tedium futility and meaninglessness for him everything is a sort of delusion life is a sequence of Dreams I've never done anything but dream this and this alone has been the meaning of my life my only real concern has been my inner life but so wrote verbisoa there is no real point in doing or achieving anything reality as we experience it is as deluded and false and

meaningful as the several dreams we had last night that dissolved upon awaking never to be known or thought of again life is but a dream destined to be coded over with the fog of Consciousness and forgotten upon the morning sunrise pasoa wrote If I write what I feel it's to reduce the fever of feeling what I confess is unimportant because everything is unimportant the recognition of the futility of doing anything and the advocation of receding into a dream world reinforces another major theme of the book contradiction and paradox after all why write about the pointlessness

of doing anything and the impossibility of ever adequately saying anything while doing something and saying things perhaps however this does not speak to the incoherence of basoa but rather speaks to what pesoa might believe is useful in paradox in medicine certain preventative and preparation treatments contain forms of the bacteria or virus that cause the disease the treatment is used to prevent likewise arguably both creating and consuming good literature and good art expose you to the virus of being so you can hopefully develop enough immunity to survive perhaps paradoxically then the driving force that compelled pasoa

to create and write and do was the awareness that creating and writing and doing is pointless it is also relevant to note that the book of disquiet was left unfinished with this it is almost as if the book mirrors besoa's philosophical conception of existence trapped inside a trunk only truly known after pasoa's death once it could no longer be changed by him interpreted only through a fragmented collection of vignettes written by someone who never existed finished by time not by intention the book itself seems to be an almost perfect metaphor for a person it is

unsettling to consider all of this and then realize that the word pesoa his birth name translates in English into person if that's not enough perhaps the most confounding aspect of the book of disquiet story is that it contains passages that prophesize its fate in it pesoa wrote it sometimes occurs to me with sad Delight that if one day in a future I won't be part of the sentences I write are read and admired then at last I'll have my own kin people who understand me my true family and which to be born and loved but

far from being born into it I'll have already died long ago I'll be understood only in effigy when affection can no longer compensate for the indifference that was the Dead Man's lot in life perhaps one day they'll understand that I fulfilled like no one else my instinctive duty to interpret a portion of our century and when they've understood that they'll write that in my time I was misunderstood that the people around me were unfortunately indifferent and insensitive to my work and that it was a Pity this happened to me and whoever writes this will fail

to understand my literary counterpart in that future time just as my contemporaries don't understand me because men learn only what would be of use to their great grandparents the right way to live is something we can teach only the Dead and of course all of this came true it's happening right now with these words we are currently participating in pasoa's Fortune told by himself a century ago one can only Wonder was this a masterfully constructed plan by a genius creative mind was it chance was it both or was it something else whatever the case may

be the story of the book of disquiet seems to have almost become a part of its artistic creation it elicits an almost metaphysical spiritual quality it feels like a religious book for atheists a manual for nihilists it can and probably will devastate most of those who read it but it will also help comfort and remind one to not take oneself or life too seriously sometimes exposure to the ailment is part of the treatment this video was sponsored by blinkist Samantha was never a great reader it wasn't that she didn't like reading or value books she

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