Fragments 12-28

Fragment 12: Pessoa sees his random writings as an unimportant autobiography and a way to unwind like solitaire.

Fragment 13: Pessoa feels his writings are as insignificant as his life next to the vast universe.

Fragment 14: Pessoa says creating imperfect art is better than creating nothing, as it may help others.

Fragment 15: Pessoa gradually conquered his innate inner nature through effort.

Fragment 16: Pessoa daydreams during a trip, neither seeing the landscapes nor remembering them.

Fragment 17: Pessoa contemplates examining his life to understand how he arrived where he is.

Fragment 18: Pessoa feels content staying in his mundane job, needing only minimal income and time for dreaming and writing.

Fragment 19: Pessoa expresses in symbolic language his sensations of fleeting passions and repeatedly shattered illusions.

Fragment 20: Whenever Pessoa tries to change his circumstances, new oppressive ones take their place.

Fragment 21: Pessoa says we are all slaves to the gods, whether they exist or not.

Fragment 22: Pessoa sees himself as destined to remain obscure, frail even in his innermost self.

Fragment 23: Pessoa advocates embracing absurdity and contradiction to avoid false self-knowledge.

Fragment 24: Pessoa realizes he shares more camaraderie with waiters and delivery boys than intimate friends.

Fragment 25: Pessoa has an eerie encounter with a lithograph of a woman staring sadly at him.

Fragment 26: Pessoa wishes to feel emotions vividly, as if each had its own heart.

Fragment 27: Pessoa sees literature's imagination as the pinnacle of human effort, giving life permanence.

Fragment 28: Pessoa longs for music or dreams to stir feeling and stop thought.