Who Are You, Really? Fernando Pessoa's Strange Answer
Adapted from "Fernando Pessoa: Imagination and the Self"
A look at how Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa invented over a hundred inner selves, and why the questions he asked about identity echo ideas Indian philosophy has grappled with for centuries.
Try this for a moment. Imagine you are a fly.
What does that look like in your head? You might picture yourself in a tiny body, buzzing around, seeing the world from a fly's point of view. Or you might go further and actually imagine becoming a fly, with a fly's desires, a fly's limited brain, a fly's strange way of sensing the world.
These are two very different things. The first is like wearing a costume. The second is a complete change of who you are from the inside.
This question, simple as it sounds, sits at the heart of one of the most unusual literary lives in modern history.
The Man Who Was a Hundred People
Fernando Pessoa was a Portuguese poet who lived from 1888 to 1935. He worked as a translator in Lisbon by day and
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