The Beautiful Uselessness of Simone Weil’s God

"Taking nothing seriously and recognizing our sensations as the only reality we have for certain, we take refuge there, exploring them like large unknown countries. And if we apply ourselves diligently not only to aesthetic contemplation but also to the expression of its methods and results, it’s because the poetry or prose we write – devoid of any desire to move anyone else’s will or to mould anyone’s understanding – is merely like when a reader reads out loud to fully objectify the subjective pleasure of reading.We’re well aware that every creative work is imperfect and that our most dubious aesthetic contemplation will be the one whose object is what we write. But everything is imperfect. There’s no sunset so lovely it couldn’t be yet lovelier, no gentle breeze bringing us sleep that couldn’t bring a yet sounder sleep. And so, contemplators of statues and mountains alike, enjoying both books and the passing days, and dreaming all things so as to transform them into our own substance, we will also write down descriptions and analyses which, when they’re finished, will become extraneous things that we can enjoy as if they happened along one day."-Pessoa, TBOD, Fragment 1

"He had furnished his two rooms with a semblance of luxury, no doubt at the expense of certain basic items. He had taken particular pains with the armchairs, which were soft and well-padded, and with the drapes and rugs. He explained that with this kind of an interior he could ‘maintain the dignity of tedium’. In rooms decorated in the modern style, tedium becomes a discomfort, a physical distress. Nothing had ever obliged him to do anything. He had spent his childhood alone. He never joined any group. He never pursued a course of study. He never belonged to a crowd. The rooms decorated in the modern style, tedium becomes a discomfort, a physical distress. Nothing had ever obliged him to do anything. He had spent his childhood alone. He never joined any group. He never pursued a course of study. He never belonged to a crowd. The circumstances of his life were marked by that strange but rather common phenomenon – perhaps, in fact, it’s true for all lives – of being tailored to the image and likeness of his instincts, which tended towards inertia and withdrawal. He never had to face the demands of society or of the state. He even evaded the demands of his own instincts. Nothing ever prompted him to have friends or lovers. I was the only one who was in some way his intimate. But even if I always felt that I was relating to an assumed personality and that he didn’t really consider me his friend, I realized from the beginning that he needed someone to whom he could leave the book that he left."Pessoa, TBOD (Preface)

This piece explores Simone Weil’s Factory Journal and her idea of Anankē—necessity—as a kind of sacred affliction: the possibility that what undoes us is also what connects us most deeply to reality. I'm including it here, because it is through Weil that I have returned to my initial Pessoan project, which will follow in subsequent fragments.

This episode is about Schubert's awful and awesome bohemian life/music/death; a Victor Hugo sonnet from "Les Contemplations" ("La mort et la beauté sont deux choses profondes"); K.G. Nishitani on Nihility, sin and redemption; Fernando Pessoa's Fragment 363 (love, possession and illusion, the interplay of beauty and horror), with visuals courtesy of a walk around Rickmansworth Lake with Max listening to Sviatoslav Richter play Schubert's Piano Sonata No. 18 in G Major: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o12iQ6n6Rs&ab_channel=SviatoslavRichter-Topic.

A "Father Archetype" soul collage for Pessoa’s Fragment 88: “Who am I, finally, when I’m not playing? A poor orphan left out in the cold among sensations, shivering on the street corners of Reality, forced to sleep on the steps of Sadness and to eat the bread offered by Fantasy. I was told that my father, whom I never knew, is called God, but the name means nothing to me. Sometimes at night, when I’m feeling lonely, I call out to him with tears and form an idea of him I can love. But then it occurs to me that I don’t know him, that perhaps he’s not how I imagine, that perhaps this figure has never been the father of my soul…” Also on YouTube - for those not able to access the video version of this episode here 🙏🏼🦋

An audio-visual Soul Collage created in response to Fernando Pessoa’s Fragment 307 (from The Book of Disquiet): “AESTHETICS OF DISCOURAGEMENT Since we can’t extract beauty from life, let’s at least try to extract beauty from not being able to extract beauty from life. Let’s make our failure into a victory, into something positive and lofty, endowed with columns, majesty and our mind’s consent. If life has given us no more than a prison cell, let’s at least decorate it as best we can – with the shadows of our dreams, their colourful patterns engraving our oblivion on the static surface of the walls. Like every dreamer, I’ve always felt that my calling was to create. Since I’ve never been able to make an effort or carry out an intention, creation for me has always meant dreaming, wanting or desiring, and action has meant dreaming of the acts I wish I could perform.” The walk that Max and I did (in reverse, starting from Chesham) can be found here.

“An episode chiefly inspired by 10 seconds of animation by Alyssa on her YouTube channel. Check out THE FULL TWELVE SECOND video ⁠here⁠. Also inspired by the following quote from fragment 32 of Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet: "Underlying everything, the hushed night was the tomb of God (and my soul felt sorry for God).” OTHER TOPICS THAT CROP UP IN THIS EPISODE:  -Lucid Dreaming: Rob’s experiences with lucid dreaming and the techniques he used to achieve it (counting backwards, repeating a phrase while falling asleep). -Finding Beauty in the Mundane: the concept of cultivating a "waking dream" mentality, where one finds wonder and beauty in everyday experiences. Cf. Eckhart Tolle/Nisargadatta. The Yearning for Connection: Lost loves, and the desire to recapture those feelings of connection and shared experiences. The possibility of finding a similar connection through lucid dreaming. -Techniques for Lucid Dreaming: dream journaling, sensory deprivation, and meditation. Life as a Waking Dream: living one’s life as a lucid dream state, rather than feeling trapped in our waking nightmares. -In The Forest of Estrangement: A text written in 1912 and forming the initial foundations for TBOD according to a letter to João de Lebre e Lima, in which FP talks about his new project. Read both the letter, as well as In The Forest of Estrangement here.

“The clock in the back of the deserted house (everyone’s sleeping) slowly lets the clear quadruple sound of four o’clock in the morning fall. I still haven’t fallen asleep, and I don’t expect to. There’s nothing on my mind to keep me from sleeping and no physical pain to prevent me from relaxing, but the dull silence of my strange body just lies there in the darkness, made even more desolate by the feeble moonlight of the street lamps. I’m so sleepy I can’t even think, so sleepless I can’t feel.” This episode begins with a restless nights for two literary alter-egos: Fernando Pessoa's Soares and Richard Matheson's (I Am Legend) Neville. Pessoa grapples with insomnia, intertwined with alcoholism as well as various existential anxieties in Fragment 31 of The Book of Disquiet, a meditation on sleep, death, and the nature of being. Neville, the protagonist of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, finds himself seemingly the last human on Earth, haunted by the undead. His struggle for sleep mirrors Pessoa's, hinting at a similar psychological issue: the manifestation in his life of the Death Drive as explored by Freud in his 1922 essay "Beyond The Pleasure Principle". Also, a fascinating historical footnote: Pessoa's role in crafting early advertising copy for Coca-Cola in Portugal, resulting in a government ban on Coca-Cola imports that lasted for over 50 years.

"Sadly, or perhaps not, I recognize that I have an arid heart. An adjective matters more to me than the real weeping of a human soul. But sometimes I’m different."

In today's missive of disquietude (Fragment 29), Fernando talks about waking to a rain-washed dawn that gives way to “triumphant” blue skies—a beautiful morning in which he feels melancholic rather than happy. As he aimlessly paces his room, the various rituals of his day expose his isolation. He feels a longing that weighs on him like a damp rag left staining a window sill. I respond by sharing my own attempts to wrangle morning chaos—the various routines I follow meant to optimize productivity, as well as the hunt for Pessoa’s words amid perfectly ordered bookshelves. No system or structure can solve our essential needs. Notes: -A day in my life | Lex Fridman -Living Each Day As A Three Act Play -Music used in this episode