Tabacaria
Considering brazilian poetry for once, or better, brazilian literature in general, I can say, without shadow of a doubt, that this country has some of the best writers to ever step foot in this world. Over here we have our own Baudelaire(s), our own Victor Hugo(s), our own Kazuo Ishiguro(s). The country's bibliographic history is one of a kind, producing pieces that should definitely have, being shone, a brighter spotlight for the world to see. One of these magnific pieces is, for sure, "Tabacaria", by Fernando Pessoa. Considered one of Brazil's most important pieces of literature, and taking culture by storm in the early 1900's.
In this entry I'll talk, briefly, about the experience that is "Tabacaria", showing a few translated parts along the way, but feel free to read the original in Portuguese here and do your own translation (to me translating original works is always a fun experience, so you should try it).
"I am nothing.
I will forever be nothing.
I can't want to be anything.
Despite that, I have in me all the dreams in the world."
(The poem opens with a very clear statement that will be explained thoroughly along the text, in which the speaker talks about the superficiality of a person's potential before the logic of reality, and the nature of each one's vocations given by destiny, by using himself as an example. When he says that he is nothing and will forever be nothing, that is somewhat of a first realization, be it the first in life — now, after living for so long —, be it the first of the day — at a moment sobriety.)
"Today I'm defeated as if I knew the truth.
[...]Today I'm perplexed, like who wondered and found and lost.
Today I'm divided between the loyalty I owe
To the tobacco shop across the street, as a real thing on the outside,
And the feeling that all is a dream
As a real thing on the inside."
"What do I know of what I'm going to be, if I don't know what I am?
Be what I think I am? But I think I am so many things!
And there are so many who think to be the same thing, that there can't be that many!"
"[...]In all insane asylums there are crazy people with so many convictions!
Am I, who am not sure of anything, more right or wrong than they are?"
"The world is for those who are born to conquer it
And not for those who dream they can conquer it, even if they're right.
I've been dreaming more than Napoleon accomplished.
I have pressed to my hypothetical chest more humanities than Christ[...]
But [...]I will always be the one who waited for the door to be opened, in front of a wall with no door."
"We conquer all of the world before we wake up;
But then we wake up and it's opaque,
We get up and it's not tangible,
We go outside and it is everything.
(The rate of people who did, compared to the people who think they could do is 1/1000, and is this feeling of wasted potential, of being amongst the thousand, that drags the speaker along the trail of distaste for the self. And it reminds me, even, of another poem by Fernando Pessoa called "Autopsicografia", that states the following,
"The poet is a faker.
That fakes so thoroughly
That even fakes the pain
They really feel."
Looking back to your past experiences and realizing they're nothing but dreams, they're nothing but pretend, and that all the pain you've felt is not shown by scars throughout your body, is a really [common and] awful feeling. The imposter syndrome is one of the biggest monsters in literature [and art in general], hauling great writers to the sewers of this inexplicable feeling of futility, and blocking potential magnum opera from ever gracing our hands. "Tabacaria" is a chronicle written by an author who knows that dark place very well, and can describe, better than anyone, how exactly it affects a poet, poetry being this raw form of human philosophy.)
"You, who consoles, who does not exist and for that reason consoles,
Or greek goddess, conceived as a living statue
Or eighteenth-century marquise, décolletée and distant,
Or modern — whatever — don't know exactly what —,
All that, whatever you may be, if you can inspire, do it!
My heart is a dumped bucket."
"I have lived, studied, loved and even believed.
And today there is no beggar I don't envy for the sole reason of not being me."
"I made of myself what I did not know how,
And what I could've made of myself, I failed to do.
The domino costume I wore was all wrong
And I was immediately recognized as someone I was not, and didn't deny it, and got lost.
[...]When I wanted to remove the mask
it was already stuck to my face."
(And after wondering for so long, entrapped by metaphysics, by theory, by the hypothetical, the tangible finally comes down to get him out of there.)
"Somebody enters the tobacco shop (to buy tobacco?)
And plausible reality crashes down upon me
[...]And I'll try to write these verses that say the opposite."
"I light up a cigarette as I think about writing them
And on that cigarette I taste the freedom of all thoughts.
I follow the smoke as my self-made trail
And possess, in that sensible and adequate moment,
The freedom from all speculation
And the realization that metaphysics is a consequence of being grumpy.
Then, I lean back on the chair,
And keep smoking.
As long as Destiny allows, I'll keep smoking."
"Given this, I get up and go to the window.
That person came out of the tobbaco shop (putting change into his pocket?).
As if by divine instinct, Estêves turns around and sees me.
He waves goodbye, and I shout 'Goodbye, oh, Estêves!' and the universe
Reconstructs itself to me, without ideals or hope, and the tobacconist smiles."
(Down to reality, put back up on the ground — coming from hypothetical hell —, the speaker is free to live once more, free to taste reality as this synthesized everything in which happinness can exist and life is everywhere to be seen not in a deeper level, but a little more superficial. Where poetry is what you see with the eyes, not the mind, and you can wave goodbye to the old friend going home to smoke a good cigar, and you see very clearly the smile from the tobacconist across the street directed at you, at the second floor window.
(It's like what I always say about drugs and art, and how to grasp reality in it's true form is a necessity to be a little more than you are right now, a little higher, and look at your surroundings not with spite, but with somewhat a passion, somewhat a feeling of belonging; to think you flew right into a giant's eye.)