Every so often, I sit down and write a letter to Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet and writer.
I not only write but also send each letter to the postal add...
Schubert's Ghost: Essence and Nihility (Fragment 363)
This episode is about Schubert's awful and awesome bohemian life/music/death; a Victor Hugo sonnet from "Les Contemplations" ("La mort et la beauté sont deux choses profondes"); K.G. Nishitani on Nihility, sin and redemption; Fernando Pessoa's Fragment 363 (love, possession and illusion, the interplay of beauty and horror), with visuals courtesy of a walk around Rickmansworth Lake with Max listening to Sviatoslav Richter play Schubert's Piano Sonata No. 18 in G Major: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o12iQ6n6Rs&ab_channel=SviatoslavRichter-Topic.
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27:00
Fragment 88: The Father of My Soul
A "Father Archetype" soul collage for Pessoa’s Fragment 88:
“Who am I, finally, when I’m not playing? A poor orphan left out in the cold among sensations, shivering on the street corners of Reality, forced to sleep on the steps of Sadness and to eat the bread offered by Fantasy. I was told that my father, whom I never knew, is called God, but the name means nothing to me. Sometimes at night, when I’m feeling lonely, I call out to him with tears and form an idea of him I can love. But then it occurs to me that I don’t know him, that perhaps he’s not how I imagine, that perhaps this figure has never been the father of my soul…”
Also on YouTube - for those not able to access the video version of this episode here 🙏🏼🦋
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32:38
Fragment 307: Basic Trust (The Song Thrush)
An audio-visual Soul Collage created in response to Fernando Pessoa’s Fragment 307 (from The Book of Disquiet):
“AESTHETICS OF DISCOURAGEMENT
Since we can’t extract beauty from life, let’s at least try to extract beauty from not being able to extract beauty from life. Let’s make our failure into a victory, into something positive and lofty, endowed with columns, majesty and our mind’s consent.
If life has given us no more than a prison cell, let’s at least decorate it as best we can – with the shadows of our dreams, their colourful patterns engraving our oblivion on the static surface of the walls.
Like every dreamer, I’ve always felt that my calling was to create. Since I’ve never been able to make an effort or carry out an intention, creation for me has always meant dreaming, wanting or desiring, and action has meant dreaming of the acts I wish I could perform.”
The walk that Max and I did (in reverse, starting from Chesham) can be found here.
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32:33
Fragment 32: Lucid Dreaming
“An episode chiefly inspired by 10 seconds of animation by Alyssa on her YouTube channel.
Check out THE FULL TWELVE SECOND video here.
Also inspired by the following quote from fragment 32 of Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet:
"Underlying everything, the hushed night was the tomb of God (and my soul felt sorry for God).”
OTHER TOPICS THAT CROP UP IN THIS EPISODE:
-Lucid Dreaming: Rob’s experiences with lucid dreaming and the techniques he used to achieve it (counting backwards, repeating a phrase while falling asleep).
-Finding Beauty in the Mundane: the concept of cultivating a "waking dream" mentality, where one finds wonder and beauty in everyday experiences. Cf. Eckhart Tolle/Nisargadatta.
The Yearning for Connection: Lost loves, and the desire to recapture those feelings of connection and shared experiences. The possibility of finding a similar connection through lucid dreaming.
-Techniques for Lucid Dreaming: dream journaling, sensory deprivation, and meditation.
Life as a Waking Dream: living one’s life as a lucid dream state, rather than feeling trapped in our waking nightmares.
-In The Forest of Estrangement: A text written in 1912 and forming the initial foundations for TBOD according to a letter to João de Lebre e Lima, in which FP talks about his new project. Read both the letter, as well as In The Forest of Estrangement here.
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34:08
Fragment 31: Beyond The Pleasure Principle
“The clock in the back of the deserted house (everyone’s sleeping) slowly lets the clear quadruple sound of four o’clock in the morning fall. I still haven’t fallen asleep, and I don’t expect to. There’s nothing on my mind to keep me from sleeping and no physical pain to prevent me from relaxing, but the dull silence of my strange body just lies there in the darkness, made even more desolate by the feeble moonlight of the street lamps. I’m so sleepy I can’t even think, so sleepless I can’t feel.”
This episode begins with a restless nights for two literary alter-egos: Fernando Pessoa's Soares and Richard Matheson's (I Am Legend) Neville.
Pessoa grapples with insomnia, intertwined with alcoholism as well as various existential anxieties in Fragment 31 of The Book of Disquiet, a meditation on sleep, death, and the nature of being.
Neville, the protagonist of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, finds himself seemingly the last human on Earth, haunted by the undead. His struggle for sleep mirrors Pessoa's, hinting at a similar psychological issue: the manifestation in his life of the Death Drive as explored by Freud in his 1922 essay "Beyond The Pleasure Principle".
Also, a fascinating historical footnote: Pessoa's role in crafting early advertising copy for Coca-Cola in Portugal, resulting in a government ban on Coca-Cola imports that lasted for over 50 years.
Every so often, I sit down and write a letter to Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet and writer.
I not only write but also send each letter to the postal address where Pessoa spent the last fifteen years of his life before dying at the age of 47 with cirrhosis of the liver - most likely due to alcoholism.
He hasn't written back to me yet, even though I put my own name and address on every missive I send (Steve W., 111 Ruskin Gardens, Kenton, London, HA3 9PY).
One day he, or someone very much like him, will perhaps write back.
I live in hope.
México