Paulo Seabra

Em continuação com o meu artigo anterior, comprometo-me agora a uma interpretação de um outro poema do mesmo poeta... mais ou menos. Porque os vários heterónimos pessoanos são todos iguais e diferentes, e diferentes e iguais. Qualquer leitor encontra temas recorrentes nos vários poemas porque de certa forma todos estes poetas se propuseram a resolver as mesmas questões que tanto atormentavam o poeta original. Mas a solução encontrada por Alberto Caeiro é algo diferente na medida em que é quase invejável ao próprio Fernando Pessoa, ainda que talvez não seja invejável aos outros heterónimos. Por outro lado, talvez eu esteja a projetar porque em tempos esta poesia foi deveras invejável para mim. Ao contrário do poema anterior, do qual nem sequer tinha memória de ter lido e apenas sei que o li porque anotei marcas e sublinhados na margem da página, este poema é um que li, que gostei e que apresentei numa aula qualquer num dia que me vem agora à memória como idílico. Mas em típico estilo d...

Já há muito tempo que não lia nada que o Fernando Pessoa escreveu, e talvez por esse motivo, mas principalmente porque buscava ideias sobre as quais escrever aqui, decidi folhear um livro de poemas dele. E enquanto o fiz, tomei especial nota das marcas que apontei na margem de algumas páginas, significando alguns poemas que gostei quando os li pela primeira vez, há cerca de sete anos atrás. Poderia ter escolhido um poema mais nostálgico ou até mais famoso, mas ao folhear por todo o livro foi este o poema que me fez mais sentido escolher. Agora leio e releio estes versos e comprometo-me a tecer algo que não me atreverei a chamar de análise, porque não sou poeta nem crítico de poesia. Mas como qualquer outro estudante português, fui leitor de Fernando Pessoa e, ainda que talvez mais a uns Fernandos Pessoas do que a outros, devo a este homem um bom pedaço dos frutos da minha escrita, que até à data são poucos ou nenhuns. Mas enfim, estou a divagar... O que queria dizer a jeito de introduç...

I'd say this film equally excels in two different aspects – its brilliance and its brutality. Clocking in at an hour and twenty-one minutes it might seem like a brief experience but it actually consists of a very slow and methodical progression, just one seemingly normal day in the lives of various high school students, a normal day that ends in shocking violence... And a rather interesting trait of said progression is that it doesn't reveal a slow descent into violence, it doesn't really delve deep into the minds of the shooters nor does it reveal the big event that made them decide to go through with that crime. The film instead aims to depict the whole system out of which such nihilistic minds emerge. As such, there are no shocking emotional moments, there are no big reveals or set pieces. In fact, the film aims for an almost cold realism, casting real students with no previous acting experience, and not even following a strict screenplay. For most movies that technique ...

This will be the third and last article written in response to secular humanism, at least the last one for a little while. I've been thinking a lot about this issue and I still consider those attempts to be laudable. However, I can't claim to be very convinced by the philosophy, and in many ways, I often express that, for all its faults, religion offers a better alternative in the sense that it maintains and almost asserts the problem of evil but still promises that evil will be overcome in the end. You might rightly consider such a thing to be wishful thinking and you have a strong case for it, but the reason why I'm a pessimist is because neither of these solutions to the problem of evil convince me. I'm not convinced by the truth claims of religion, neither am I convinced by the virtues of secular humanism. Ironically, I almost wanna say that it's atheists who refuse to acknowledge the problem of evil... And as far as christianity in particular goes, I have to s...

Pascal's argument is strange, that much is clear to everyone. It is often deployed by believers as a last resort when all the other aces have been refuted by their atheist interlocutor, so it does come up quite a bit, I suppose. But its commonality is both due to it being a fairly simple argument to grasp but also because it constitutes a genuine doubt. So it is kind of ironic that a mathematician of all things, was the one to come up with an apologetic argument that, under the guise of logic and probability, actually has a deep underlying psychological question – what if I'm wrong? I was gonna include a boring portrait of Blaise Pascal but as I wrote the article, a picture like this one seemed more accurate I would think that almost everyone, believer or not, and regardless of faith, has at one point or another asked him or herself that very question. If you falter in your religion, you worry about hell, if you consider all the people who follow other religions, you worry abou...