Let's act like sphinxes, however falsely, until we reach the point of no longer knowing who we are. For we are, in fact, false sphinxes, with no idea of what we are in reality. The only way to be in agreement with life is to disagree with ourselves. Absurdity is divine.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, text 23
In my COR 204 class this week we're plunging into The Book of Disquiet, which I suspect the students will either love or it will break them. I'm not certain which one I'd prefer. By that I mean that while I would like my students to appreciate Pessoa (this is apparently one of my life goals) I think it might benefit them more to have their untroubled brains shattered, if only so that they can be put back together again. To be clear on this subject, I'm not really interested in putting them back together again: it is for others, hopefully themselves, to carry out that job. That said, they can't begin that process until they're broken down in the first place, which is essentially the point that I think Pessoa is making in the passage above. We can't connect or reconnect until we first disconnect.
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