Saturday 27 May 2023

Little essay of daily life - what I learned from Pessoa








It has been by chance that I came across Ferdinando Pessoa. The first poem of his I read was in a bad English translation. But I felt an energy coming from the fabric of those words. I researched more, until, later, listening to his poems in the original language, read by a wonderful Portuguese male voice, I discovered the beauty of his poems. Which are often sharp, witty and desecrating and also veiled with melancholy like the poem Há metafísica bastante em não pensar em nada.

Pessoa shows his intimation to remain where the visible ends:

Não acredito em Deus porque nunca o vi.
Se ele quisesse que eu acreditasse nele,
Sem dúvida que viria falar comigo
E entraria pela minha porta dentro
Dizendo-me, Aqui estou!
...

Mas se Deus é as flores e as árvores
E os montes e sol e o luar,
Então acredito nele,
Então acredito nele a toda a hora,
E a minha vida é toda uma oração e uma missa,
E uma comunhão com os olhos e pelos ouvidos.

Mas se Deus é as árvores e as flores
E os montes e o luar e o sol,
Para que lhe chamo eu Deus?
Chamo-lhe flores e árvores e montes e sol e luar;
Porque, se ele se fez, para eu o ver,
Sol e luar e flores e árvores e montes,
Se ele me aparece como sendo árvores e montes
E luar e sol e flores,
É que ele quer que eu o conheça
Como árvores e montes e flores e luar e sol.
[1]
 

And when I am forced to face the ugliness of the poor human matter that surrounds me daily, I learned his lesson and I never try to go beyond the little it shows, because

Cada coisa é o que é [2]

It is therefore useless to look beyond what does not exist because it would be a vain effort to persist in it, for in hoc saeculo, in this transient world:

Tudo isso é absolutamente independente da minha vontade [3]

In fact, the problem of being such a poor living thing is theirs, and not mine.


PS. I believe in God. But The lectio magistralis by Pessoa, I find it perfectly applicable to daily life.


----------------

[1] 

I don't believe in God because I never saw him.
If he wanted me to believe in him,
Without a doubt he would come and talk to me
And he would enter through my door within
Telling me, Here I am!
...
But if God is the flowers and the trees
And the mountains and Sun and moonlight,
Then I believe in him,
Then I believe in him at all hours,
And my life is all a prayer and a mass,
And my communion with the eyes and through the ears.

But if God is the trees and the flowers
And the mountains and the moonlight and the Sun,
Then why should I call him God?
I call him flowers and trees and mountains and Sun and moonlight;
Because, if he made himself, for me to see him,
Sun and moonlight and flowers and trees and mountains,
If he appears to me being trees and mountains
And moonlight and Sun and flowers,
It is that he wants me to recognize him
Like trees and mountains and flowers and moonlight and Sun.

[2] 

Each thing is what it is
(Pessoa - A espantosa realidade das coisas)

[2] 

All of this is absolutely independent of my will
(Pessoa - A espantosa realidade das coisas)


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