I’ve always wanted to be liked. It grieved me that I was treated with indifference. Left an orphan by Fortune, I wanted—like all orphans—to be the object of someone’s affection. This need has always been a hunger that went unsatisfied, and so thoroughly have I adapted to this inevitable hunger that I sometimes wonder if I really feel the need to eat. Whatever be the case, life pains me.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a deep desire for affection and connection, highlighting the pain of feeling unloved or overlooked.
In this quote, Fernando Pessoa reflects on the universal human need for love and acceptance. He articulates the emotional pain that comes from indifference and the longing for connection that can consume one’s thoughts and feelings. The comparison of love to a hunger illustrates how deeply this desire can affect one's sense of self and experiences in life. It suggests that the absence of affection can lead to a profound sense of loss, making one question the very nature of their needs and desires.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of emotional connections in our lives.
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.
Meg was going to have to learn for herself what Laurie had figured out over the summer - that it was better to leave well enough alone, to avoid unnecessary encounters with the people you'd left behind, to not keep poking at that sore tooth with the tip of your tongue. Not because you didn't love them anymore, but because you did, and because that love was useless now, just another dull ache in your phantom limb.
Basic human contact - the meeting of eyes, the exchanging of words - is to the psyche what oxygen is to the brain. If you're feeling abandoned by the world, interact with anyone you can.
I get a little heated when I talk about the past. But I wanted to be clear - I'm not mad at anybody - not anymore.
I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they'll 'say something about it' or not. I hate if they do, and if they don't.
We often hear that people mean well: that so many just don't how to interact with people with disabilities. They're unsure of the 'right' reaction, so they default to condescension that makes them feel better in the face of their discomfort.
Anybody who doesn't make you feel good, kick them to the curb. And the earlier you start in your life, the better.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.