A Comfort

From The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

'I often wonder what kind of person I would be if I had been protected from the cold wind of fate by the screen of wealth, and my uncle's moral hand had never led me to an office in Lisbon, and I had never moved on from there to other offices to reach the tawdry heights of being a good assistant book-keeper in a job that is about as demanding as an afternoon nap and offers a salary that gives me just enough to live on.

I know that had that non-existent past existed, I would not now be capable of writing these pages, which, though few, are at least better than all the pages I would have undoubtedly have only day-dreamed about given more comfortable circumstances. For banality is a form of intelligence, and reality, especially if it is brutish and rough, forms a natural complement to the soul.

Much of what i feel and think I owe to my work as a book-keeper since the former exists as a negation of and flight from the latter.'