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

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Satisfied by a little heat as by an eternal truth


I've also noticed that the only difference between humans and animals is the way they deceive themselves and remain ignorant about the life they live. Animals don't know what they do: they're born, they grow up, they die without thought, reflection or a real future. And how many man live differently from animals? We all sleep, and the only difference is in what we dream, and in the degree and quality of our dreaming. Perhaps death will awaken us, but we can't even be sure of that unless it's by faith (for which believing is having), and hope (for which wanting is possessing), or by charity (for which giving is receiving).

It's raining, and as if the rain had made them hunch forward, my feelings lower their stupid gaze to the ground, where water flows and nourishes nothing, washes nothing, cheers up nothing. It's raining, and I suddenly feel the terrible weight of being an animal that doesn't know what it is, dreaming its thought and emotion, withdrawn into spatial region of being as into a hovel, satisfied by a little heat as by an eternal truth.

Fernando Pessoa
The Book of Disquiet
translation: Richard Zenith
p. 323
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