I was fortunate enough to spend some time in Lisbon recently, and while I was there I came upon a statue of Fernando Pessoa. Reading about him I discovered that he is considered Portugal’s greatest writer from the Modern Period. I have since been reading The Book of Disquiet. It is unlike anything I’ve read before, and truly extraordinary. Here’s an excerpt:

“Not pleasure, not glory, not power… Freedom, only freedom.

To go from the phantoms of faith to the ghosts of reason is merely to change cells. Art, if it frees us from the abstract idols of old, should also free us from the magnanimous ideas and social concerns, which are likewise idols.

To find our personality by losing it- faith itself endorses this destiny.”