Status Updates From El libro del desasosiego

There are parts I don’t quite agree with; either from having not experienced life that way or aversion to the cynicism than from an abhorrence of his conclusions. Nevertheless I am stricken by how he continues to expresses my own thoughts so keenly. Because how can a stranger (no matter that he lived briefly in South Africa, no matter the import that brings) say what I think so accurately?

“My poor companions with their lofty dreams, how i envy and despise them!
…Like eels in a bowl they become so entangled with one another that they can never escape. They may get a mention in the newspapers…but they never attain fame.
They are the happy ones because they are given the dream […] of stupidity. But as for those, like me, who have dreams without illusions […]”

I already know this translation is gonna be ass. So much talk about the difficulty of preserving the essence and sensuality of Pessoa’s portuguese and the guy translates “desigualam-se” as “all different” and “mortos da confusão” as “dumb, jostling conflusion” . Killed the sensuality and translated this beautiful jumble of portuguese into baby english. Fucking kill me.