The Void, of which it cannot be said that it is or is not, nor that it has consciousness or has none, while it denies absoluteness to any experiential value (alike to being and to consciousness) cannot be identified. And that is the doctrine of not-self (anatta) as I see it in one aspect at present. This voidness cannot be “is-ed” and so introduced into the worldly scheme, except as the denial of absoluteness of all particular values. It has no more effect on ordinary life than the theory of relativity. But just as that theory completely alters calculation of enormous speeds, so, as I see it, this void-element completely alters calculations of extraordinary situations, of death (as killing, suicide or the partner of old age). N.T

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Malady of being conscious


I raise my head from the sheet of paper where I'm writing … It's early still. It's just past noon on a Sunday. Life's basic malady, that of being conscious, begins with my body and discomforts me. To have no islands where those of us who are uncomfortable could go, no ancient garden paths reserved for those who've retreated into dreaming! To have to live and to act hoverer little; to have to be here writing this, because my soul needs it, and not to be able to just dream it all, to express it without words, without so much as consciousness, through a construction of myself in music and diffuseness, such that tears would well in my eyes as soon as I felt like expressing myself, ever further into unconsciousness and the Far-away, to the and but God.

Fernando Pessoa
The Book of Disquiet
translation: Richard Zenith
p. 90
Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)