Pessoa

I finally got around to finishing Pessoa’s book, and so it joins in the circulation of my hunting rounds for quotations.

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In my dreams I’ve sometimes tried to be the unique and imposing individual that the Romantics envisaged in themselves, and I always end up laughing out loud at the very idea. The ultimate man exists in the dreams of all ordinary men, and Romanticism is merely the turning inside out of the empire we normally carry around inside us. Nearly all men dream, deep down, of their own mighty imperialism: the subjection of all men, the surrender of all women, the adoration of all peoples and - for the noblest dreamers - of all eras. …

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Even I, who laugh at these seductions that play on the mind, very often catch myself thinking how nice it would be to be famous, how pleasant to be doted on, how colorful to be triumphat! But I’m unable to envision myself in these lofty roles without a hearty snicker from the other ‘I’ that’s always near by … See myself famous?

-- Fernando Pessoa, “The Book of Disquiet”

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This Cough

Damn, I still have that cough. All other effects of that illness are long gone. Maybe I should not have mocked it when I likened it to the awkward kid who insists on hanging around with the cooler group of guys. I knew that was not wholly accurate even then, but it was such a good word-picture that I could not kill that darling. This cough just will not go away. It does not even feel like it is fading. To be sure, it is not as bad as the first week, when I was bedridden and burning up, but it is a bully that you do not want in your life. If one had money, it is the kind of thing for which you might go ahead and make an appointment to see the doctor, to play it safe and see what is going on, maybe get something for it. I am not really that anxious and worried over it, thinking that it may just need another week or two to give up the war. I am much more concerned about my right foot, which is a more threatening condition that is now celebrating its first-year anniversary. Still, this cough is a thing on my mind, another intimation of my falling apart - I think of leaves falling and all the happy things I never did.