Our Two Lives
Which one are you living in?
“We all have two lives: the true, the one we dreamed of in childhood and go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin.”
― Fernando Pessoa
“We all have two lives.”
While crafting a freewriting story inspired by the first line of a random book, my dear friend Susan Sagarin picked this random quote on a whim. Little did she know— or perhaps little did I recall — that it was from one of my favorite Portuguese authors, Fernando Pessoa, a writer whose views I’ve always deeply resonated with. His poems have sparked my reflections on life and destiny since I was in college (I was an English & Portuguese major).
Even before realizing (or remembering) this was his quote, I found myself immersed in the deep meaning behind his words. And what follows below is the result of my freewriting on the topic.
We all have two lives.
The first life is the living-in-the-matrix type of life. In this life, your wishes, goals, thoughts, and beliefs are all based on a standardized idea of success. In this life, we choose a career, a life partner, names for our kids and pets, the house we buy, the…
