Thursday, June 16, 2011

Note to Pessoa

"I'm astounded whenever I finish something. Astounded and distressed. My perfectionist instinct should inhibit me from finishing: it should inhibit me from even beginning. But I get distracted and start doing something. What I achieve is not the product of an act of my will but of my will's surrender. I begin because I don't have the strength to think; I finish because I don't have the courage to quit. This book is my cowardice."

-- Fernando Pessoa, Livro do Desassossego (The Book of Disquiet)

If it were indeed so, my dear friend, it would be the greatest act of cowardice I've ever known in my life.