Sunday, 22 May 2011

F.Pessoa-Is there anything that we possess?

(The Book of Disquiet, 364)

















How can I possess with my body, when I don’t even possess my body?
How can I possess with my soul, when I don’t possess my soul?
How can I understand with my mind, when I don’t understand my mind?

There is no body or truth we possess, nor even any illusion.
We are phantoms made of lies, shadows of illusions,
and our life is hollow on both the outside and the inside.

Does anyone know the borders of his soul, that he can say ‘I am I’?


But I know that I’m the one who feels what I feel.

When someone else possesses this body, does he possess the same thing in it as I?
No. He possesses another sensation.

Is there anything that we possess?
If we don’t know who we are, how can we know what we possess?

If, referring to what you eat, you were to say, ‘I possess this’, then I would understand you. Because you obviously incorporate what you eat into yourself, you transform it into your substance, you feel it enter into you and belong to you. But it’s not with regard to what you eat that you speak of possession. What do you call possessing?

No comments:

Post a Comment