But my self-imposed exile from life's
actions and objectives and my attempt to break off all contact with
things led precisely to what I tried to escape. I didn't want to feel
life or to touch anything real, for the experience of my temperament
in contact with the world had taught me that the sensation of life
was always painful to me. But in isolating myself to avoid that
contact, I exacerbated my already overwrought sensibility. If it were
possible to cut off completely all contact with things, than my
sensibility would pose no problem. But this total isolation cannot be
achieved. However little I do, I still breathe; however little I act,
I still move. And so, having exacerbated my sensibility through
isolation, I found that the tiniest things, which even for me had
been perfectly innocuous, began to wrack me like catastrophes. I
chose the wrong method of escape. I fled via an uncomfortable and
roundabout route to end up at the same place I'd started from, with
the fatigue of my journey added to the horror of living there.
Pessoa
The Book of Disquiet
translation: Richard Zenith
p. 380
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.