There's something vile (and all the more vile because ridiculous) in the tendency of feeble men to make universal tragedies out of the sad comedies of their private woes.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the tendency of weak individuals to exaggerate their personal struggles into grand tragedies.
Fernando Pessoa highlights the absurdity in how some people magnify their personal difficulties, transforming minor setbacks into significant tragedies. This behavior not only reflects their weakness but also misrepresents the genuine nature of life's struggles, turning personal misfortunes into exaggerated narratives that cloud their understanding of reality.
In practice
During a support group, one might quote this to remind individuals to not let their personal struggles overwhelm them.
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.
I wander though China. Without ever having boarded a plane. My travels take place here in the Tokoyo subways, in the backseat of a taxi... all of a sudden this city will start to go. In a flash, the buildings will crumble. Over the Tokyo streets will fall my China, like ash, leaching into everything it touches. Slowly, gradually, until nothing remains. No, this isn't a place for me.
You can't shake hands with a closed fist.
The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon. You can see it over millennia, over centuries, over decades and over years.
So each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, or at least some remote and distant hope.
All of us take offense to anyone who reaps the rewards of living in America without taking on the responsibilities of living in America. And undocumented immigrants who desperately want to embrace those responsibilities see little option but to remain in the shadows, or risk their families being torn apart.
For the record, I don't expect you to believe any of this. Not really. I'm a liar by trade, after all; albeit, I like to think, an honest liar.
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