Editing Fernando Pessoa (section)

== Adolescent Traits and Self-Education ==
During his teen years, Pessoa excelled academically, especially in languages and composition. He also developed an interest in spiritualism and occult subjects, spending long hours in Durban’s libraries reading on mystics and Theosophy.

This intense, often solitary pursuit of esoteric knowledge is characteristic of Asperger’s special interests – highly specific and not shared by peers. Indeed, most teenagers around him were interested in sports or social activities, while Pessoa was deciphering symbolic systems of mysticism.

Letters from his teenage years show an unusually formal and pedantic writing style for his age. He wrote to his mother almost as an adult might, with careful phrasing and sometimes stilted expressions, suggesting the ''“little professor”'' aspect of Asperger youth.

Returning to Lisbon at 17, Pessoa briefly enrolled in university but soon dropped out, finding the structured education stifling to his independent intellect. He largely educated himself thereafter. Like many Asperger individuals, Pessoa had no problem with intellectual rigor but chafed under formal requirements and social aspects of schooling.

He was essentially self-directed, constructing his own extensive reading programs in literature, philosophy, and occult studies from his late teens onward.