Fernando Pessoa: The Man Who Never Lived

on November 30th 1935 a man died because of a bad liver due to alcoholism he was a writer but not really that famous publishing around five books but when his place was searched post death a trunk was discovered full of unpublished hidden work with more than 25,000 pages and it's this trunk that made him famous in this video we're going over the life and philosophy of Fernando pooa the man who never lived pooa was born in Lisbon Portugal in 1888 after his father died while he was young his mother remarried and the stepfather's job led

him to move to South Africa so already at a young age we're seeing a lot of change in instability during his education he started experimenting with pseudonyms when writing and this decision would change the way he wrote forever you see Fernando poo may just be one guy but within him he created more than 70 other personalities and no this is not a multiple personality disorder thing he simply invented people people with their own unique lives own unique philosophies their own thoughts you have people like Alvaro de Campos Alberto caio and Bernardo Suarez all existing within

this one man and all writing their own works when he returned to Lisbon he never left why would he when he created a whole new world and all new people within himself plus Lisbon is just a beautiful place I actually ran into pooa myself while I was there it was the summer of 2022 I was on a law school trip to Spain but wanted to visit Portugal I was at a disco club at 2: a.m. cuz clubs in Europe open super late and I was dancing with this one girl whose name was a verb combined

with a noun that's all I'll say on that but I'm walking back to my hotel drunk stumbling over myself and I see him or rather I come across a statue of him outside a coffee house and take a photo with him B SOA is just so big over there and yet here in America I barely knew about him so you may be asking why did you title this video the man who never lived are you just going to reveal by the end that this guy never existed well stay tuned cuz we'll get into that now

pooa wrote a lot on a lot of different subjects he does have a collection of philosophical essays on things like Free Will and metaphysics but you know what we're going to do something a little different here instead we're going to look at his most famous literary work the book of disqui The Book of disquiet is written by one of P's created characters a man named Bernardo Suarez Suarez works as a bookkeeper at an office and while the book does have sections that read like a diary the majority of the book is filled with various thoughts

some of which are filled with very interesting philosophical ideas some of these ideas are wild and sometimes contradictory but I promise you that these little thoughts are extremely fascinating but the question should be asked are these piso's own thoughts or the thoughts of this character Bernardo Suarez although it's technically bernardo's diary I think we can really find pasoa himself bleeding into bernardo's Persona and nothing illuminates this better than the preference of Dreams and writing to actual reality 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 see what I mean we could see parallels to P's own life how he created these lives and scenarios on the inside but honestly lived a fairly mundane and ordinary life on the outside now we might feel the urge to tell pooa to go touch grass and go out there and live but pooa makes some compelling Arguments for this more inward dreaming life rather than an outside living for starters the outside world is unpredictable and can be harmful it can throw challenges our way and really demoralize us but when

you value your inner life rather than your outer life the impact of those outside troubles are lessened the truly wise man is the one who can keep external events from changing him in any way to do this he covers himself with an armor of realities closer to him than the world's facts and through which the facts modified accordingly reach him this is going to sound really stupid but reminds me of an episode of SpongeBob where Patrick is copying everything SpongeBob does and SpongeBob thinks to himself at least I'm safe inside my mind there is a

certain security there if you can control it and be as creative as pooa this is coupled with the fact that he's kind of playing God in a sense he's creating whatever he wants and he's able to do it in peace in my imagination I line up the characters so alive and dependable who occupy my inner life and this makes me feel cozy like sitting by a warm fire in winter I have a world of friends inside me with their own real individual imperfect lives this is what I mean by pooa being the man who never

lived like yeah obviously he lived and had to do things in the external world but he placed such a high emphasis on his inner world that the outer world the actual living was kind of insignificant so that's just one of the goodies that could be found within the book of diset but again it's a scattered mess of random thoughts so I'd like to share some other philosophically interesting ideas that come up but here's a question for you you guys do you guys like nature you know like trees and Wildlife and mountains that sort of thing

sure we think it's very pretty and special to experience but why is this P's character believes that this is because he lives in the city the artificial and his appreciation of nature exists only because it can contrast with the artificial more specifically the city is the new nature but for me and perhaps for other people like me it seems that what's artificial has become natural and what's natural is now strange or rather it's not that what's artificial has become natural it's simply that what's natural has changed think about primitive people with no cities or man-made

things just existing in nature do you think they paused at the Wilderness to appreciate its beauty I mean maybe but since they live in it 247 they might not have it's nothing special to them after all but us in our industrialized areas we have a higher appreciation for nature because it's not the norm in terms of aesthetic appreciation it's not nature versus industrialization like how it's commonly portrayed but rather they give Beauty to one another by contrast artificiality is the best way to enjoy what's natural whatever I've enjoyed in these vast Fields I've enjoyed because

I don't live here another philosophical Insight from the book of disquiet is P's thoughts on political revolutionaries and reformers now think what would an inwardly focused philosopher think of people who are trying to change the external and he guesses revolutionary or reformer the error is the same unable to dominate and reform his own attitude towards life which is everything or his own being which is almost everything he flees devoting himself to modifying others in the outside world to fight for change is to be incapable of changing oneself now if you're politically minded you might say

well pooa that's nice and all but we have to address problems in the world how else are we going to fight evil are you saying we should just ignore it well not exactly B SOA does think we should fight evil but he wants us to fight an evil that we can actually have control control over an evil that we see every day the evil of ourselves a sensitive and honest minded man if he's concerned about evil and Injustice in the world will naturally begin his campaign against them by eliminating them at their nearest source his

own person this task will take his entire life there are some other interesting political pooa bits especially when he argues against doing good acts at one point but let's step away from the world of political philosophy and go into existentialism in the world of sarra and Kimu I think pooa has one of the best expressions of what it's like to be a living human being and you know I'm not even going to provide commentary I'm just going to read you straight up this beautiful piece on an existential life one day I don't know which I

found myself in this world having lived unfeelingly from the time I was evidently born until then when I asked where I was everyone misled me and they contradicted each other when I asked them to tell me what I should do they all spoke falsely and each one said something different when in bewilderment I stopped on the road everyone was shocked that I didn't keep going to no one knew where or else turned back I who'd woken up at the crossroads and didn't know where I'd come from I saw that I was on a stage and

didn't know the part that everyone else recited straight off and without knowing it I saw that I was dressed as a page but they didn't give me the queen and blamed me for not having her I saw that I had a message in my hand to deliver and when I told them that the sheet of paper was blank they laughed at me and I still don't know if they laughed because all cheets are blank or because all messages are to be guessed I mean that's just beautiful straight up if I were a guy who didn't

have a full-time job and could make super long videos I would include so many more philosophical insights written in this beautiful style that are found in this book but maybe it's good to end here so you all feel motivated to read it yourself that's another plus the book of dis is fairly available while his philosophical essays are harder to come by but alas It's Time to Say Goodbye if you enjoyed this video then be sure to share like subscribe and hit the Bell button comment below any thoughts you have on pooa and I wish you

all a beautiful rest of your day [Music]