Impishly Unpredictable Even To Myself

   If it weren't for my continuous dreaming, my perpetual state of alienation, I could very well call myself a realist - someone, that is, for whom the outer world is an independent nation. But I prefer not to give myself a name, to be somewhat mysterious about what I am an to be impishly unpredictable even to myself.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, ch. 221

Over the years I've often noted that my internal battle between being a realist and a dreamer - a product of the Enlightenment or a product of Romanticism - takes on the nature and dimension of the battle of Stalingrad. I have always definitely thought of myself as a realist, but maybe that's actually a part of my nature that I dislike. At the same time, I am undeniably a dreamer, which is probably why I've fallen so deeply into The Book of Disquiet and Pessoa's own dreamlike existence (or at least ambition). Or, maybe it would be more honest to admit that this is part of my bigger desire not to be known, "impishly unpredictable" to others, although, as Pessoa proposed, "even to myself." Maybe if you're known by others then you're also owned by others, and being unknown leaves you in control of yourself. 

Side note: I started a series at Champlain entitled  Books That Matter, where people are encouraged to come give an hour talk on a book that they think is important. I presented The Book of Disquiet, and exactly four people showed up for the talk, which is a pretty good example of the general exhaustion that people feel with me. My dear friend Sandy officially retired last week and it hit me pretty hard, and made me think about my own retirement. At this point it's probably the disinterest and disrespect of my colleagues that is inspiring the decision to step away more than my own physical collapse. As I've always joked, when I'm no longer the scariest person in the room I don't want to be in the room anymore; I think I've reached the point where no one even realizes that I'm in the room.

Squid Ink Pasta Yet Again

 I have nothing to add to this picture of shrimp and squid ink pasta other than I should be eating it right now. I was fulling out picture from my phone and came across this picture from last summer's trip to Portugal. OK, look, I know I haven't even had breakfast yet but there's no reason why this isn't a perfectly legitimate choice for café da manha.

JP and I just stumbled across crazy inexpensive tickets for Lisbon for next March, which means that a spring break trip may be on the schedule - and thus this dish may be in my near future.

Save The Date Indeed

 OK, I guess it's definitely official. My son Gary and his fiancée Ali are getting married on 14 September 2024. This is such extraordinary news. She's wonderful and they're so good together. I could not be happier for them. It's funny when you realize that your kids are suddenly, finally, fully-fledged and functioning adults - which I guess doubles down when they're getting married. 

I'm assuming her song X Boyfriends will not be played at the reception.

Presepio

 One of the discoveries of this past summer's trip to Portugal was the art museum in Lisbon.  Janet was in the middle of writing so I skived off to visit the museum. There I discovered presepios - that is, cribs or mangers - or maybe it's better to think of them as religious miniatures. They might have "lived" in churches, but you were apparently also just as likely to find them in private homes. They were closed up most of the time, but then you could open them up to explore the little world inside. As a child I would have been absolutely fixated on them.

Pure Ascetic

 The rustic, the reader of novels, the pure ascetic - these three are happy in life, for these three types of men all renounce their personalities: one because he lives by instinct, which is impersonal, another because he lives by the imagination, which is forgetting, and the third because he doesn't live but merely (since he still hasn't died) sleeps.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, ch. 232

Truthfully, I don't know if I've actually processed all of this passage yet, but, like so much of Pessoa, I think he's giving me the tools to arrive at a deeper understanding. Maybe I'm just drawn to this because I've moved into the wilderness and I see myself in all three of these categories. Earlier in this chapter Pessoa notes, "Happy the man who doesn't ask for more than what life spontaneously gives him, being guided by the instinct of cats, which seek sunlight when there's sun, and when there's no sun then heat, wherever they find it." One of the reasons why I think I've been so unhappy during so much of my life - or at least much less happy than I should have been - is that I consistently over-thought everything, not necessarily because I've been too intellectual (because, well, I think we know that's not true) but because I felt that I was supposed to over-think everything, that somehow that gave me an intellectual bona fides that growing up in southern Indiana didn't provide. I used to opine that Graceland made sense once you visited Elvis's childhood home in Tupelo, Mississippi. Maybe the emotional carnage of so much of my life makes sense because of my own stunted intellectual/emotional youth. From now on, I'm following the example of the cats.

 

Yes, because I need more pictures of Wadi Rum sunsets

 Seriously, how many photos of Wadi Rum sunsets are buried here in this blog? The answer: not enough.

Why am I not there - on the cliff above Suleyman's camp - right now?

Perhaps That Is How the Iliad Was Written

   If in art there were the office of improver, then I would have a function in life, at least in my life a an artist.

  To begin with somebody else's creation, working only on improving it . . . Perhaps that is how the Iliad was written.

  Anything but to have to struggle with original creation!

  How I envy those who produce novels, those who begin them and write them and finish them! I can imagine novels chapter by chapter, sometimes with the actual phrases of dialogue and the narrative commentary in between, but I'm incapable of committing these dreams of writing to paper . . . . . .

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, ch. 291

I have this sinking suspicion that someday I'll be as famous/infamous as Fernando Pessoa for never actually finishing my larger writing projects. In there are probably many reasons for this ignominious reality: 1) I teach in an interdisciplinary programs with a heavy teaching load, none of the courses in my own discipline - and the curriculum is constantly being revised, and 2) I'm a very dedicated teacher who devotes an incredible amount of time to class prep and looking after my students (I suppose this is a subset of point #1, but in other ways it's a separate point - I have several colleagues who are facing the same challenges but also don't particularly give a shit about their students or the quality of their classes), and 3) I work on two many different projects - mainly, I guess, because I find all of them interesting - which means instead of simply finishing the Epics project I'm also tinkering with Ramadan in Winter (my personal reflection on Islam) and a couple creative writing projects, and 4) I'm the laziest person in the world - at least that's what my father repeatedly told me growing up and I suspect he was/is right, and 5) I'm more than a bit of a coward in regards to my writing, and 6) I'm utterly talentless.

Maybe this is why I'm so drawn to Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet: I completely understand  why - and sympathize with - his inability to finish his projects.

Oh, and I completely swiped his reference to the Iliad for this related chapter in the Epics book.