The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the pain of yearning for the unattainable and feeling dissatisfaction with reality.
Fernando Pessoa's quote delves into the complexity of human emotions, particularly the anguish that arises from longing for things that are impossible or never were. He suggests that such feelings, including nostalgia and regret, create a persistent inner turmoil that colors our perception of life, resulting in an unending struggle between what is and what could be.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of regret during a therapy session.
I have at this moment so many fundamental thoughts, so many truly metaphysical things to say, that I suddenly get tired and decide not to write any more, not to think any more, but to allow the fever of speaking to make me sleepy, and with my eyes closed, like a cat, I play with everything I could have said.
It's been months since I last wrote. I've lived in a state of mental slumber, leading the life of someone else. I've felt, very often, a vicarious happiness. I haven't existed. I've been someone else. I've lived without thinking.
We all have two lives: The true, the one we dreamed of in childhood And go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin.
I'm a man for whom the outside world is an inner Reality.
My dreams are a stupid refuge, like an umbrella against a thunderbolt.
The chill of what I won't feel gnaws at my present heart.
One who is allowed to sin, sins less
The self-styled practical man of affairs who pooh-poohs philosophy as a lot of windy notions is himself a pragmatist or a positivist, and a bad one at that, since he has given no thought to his position.
Take notice not only of the mercies of God, but of God in the mercies. Mercies are never so savoury as when they savour a Saviour.
All things may corrupt when minds are prone to evil.
These practices - non-killing, truthfulness, non-stealing, chastity, and non-receiving - are to be practised by every man, woman, and child; by every soul, irrespective of nation, country, or position.
I see possibilities in everything. For everything that's taken away, something of greater value has been given.
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