Some of us stagnated in the idiotic
conquest of the ordinary, contemptibly seeking our daily bread
without ever sweating for it, without making conscious effort,
without the nobility of achievement.
Others of us, more high-minded, spurned
state and society, wanting and desiring nothing, and trying to take
to the calvary of oblivion the cross of simply existing – an
impossible endeavor for whoever doesn't have, like the bearer of the
Cross, the consciousness of a divine origin.
Still others, busy on the outside of
the soul, devoted themselves to the cult of noise and confusion,
thinking they were living whenever they heard themselves, and
supposing they loved whenever they brushed love's outward forms.
Living was painful because we knew we were alive; dying didn't scare
us, for we had lost the normal notion of what death is.
Fernando Pessoa
The Book of Disquiet
translation: Richard Zenith
p. 261
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