Fernando Pessoa. Helpful reading?

[My last post here had to do with me telling my therapist I thought I had AvPD, but I didn’t get to do that. I’m working on other things with him. I’m not sure what I am, if I am anything.]

I wonder if anyone here has ever heard of a man named Fernando Pessoa, or has read “The Book of Disquietude” or any of Pessoa’s work, poetry, etc?

I have, and can relate to a lot to what he writes about, especially in The Book of Disquietude. I just thought this might interest someone here, and might help out some.
Reading his stuff and reading about him has helped me, in a way. If you look him up you might find him interesting, maybe.

He invented “heteronyms” (other selves) in to express himself in writing. He managed to express himself in a way that kept him from being “defined” as a person. He was basically very alone and detached from the world, and had little contact with people. He was conscious of his consciousness, and wrote about it all the time, during his whole life basically. I think you could say that the life he lived consisted almost entirely of thinking/writing about life, and making up imaginary friends. I can’t explain him well enough.
It’s hard to explain him.

But I think he’s worth taking a look at

Here’s a quote from The Book of Disquiet:

“Sometimes I think how beautiful it would be if I could join my dreams together and make them into a continuous life, a life consisting of entire days full of imaginary companions and created people, a false life which I could live and suffer and enjoy. Misfortunes would befall me there, and there I would know great joys. And nothing about me would be real. But everything would have a superb and serious logic, everything in accord with a rhythm of voluptuous falseness, everything happening in a city built by my soul, extending until it was lost out of sight, all the way to the platform next to a still train, far away in the distance within me . . . And everything distinct and inevitable, as in the outer life, but by an aesthetics of the Dying Sun.”

I’m sorry. I wanted to add something else.

The reason reading him was/is helpful to me is because he seems to have found some way to cope with his detachment/avoidance . . .

Well, this post fills me with a rare pride, which comes from the rare moments in which a portuguese artist is recognized.
I've read a large part of his work in school and continue reading out of school and I perfectly understand what you're saying.

I like it! I'll put that on my 'To Read' list.

I’m Portuguese (from the U.S.) and was lucky enough to have a professor who knew Pessoa and encouraged me to get into him some more.

I also definitely plan to continue to read him outside of school.

I first came across him in the 8th grade. I was casually looking through “random” books at the library and then came across The Book of Disquietude. All I remember is that it appealed to me very much. I left it for a few years, and now that I’m older I want to study him more seriously.

I was (am) always a pretty lonely person, despite having some friends, whenever they came along, so even at that age I connected with the writing in some way even though I probably didn’t understand a lot of it.

Thanks for responding.
Yeah. He’s definitely worth reading.