It is with great sadness that I learned yesterday that one of my favorite authors, Gabriel Garcia Marquez passed away. When I broke the news to one of my friends, he sent me back this quote: Ningun lugar en la vida es mas triste que un cama vacia. Translated into English, what this basically says is that there is no other place in life more full of sorrow than in an empty bed. To truly understand the depth of this, however, you first have to know what real love is, and then it also really helps if you happen to be Latin.
Those of us that grew up speaking the romance languages and studying the arts are definite outliers. It is very hard to explain some things to those trained as linear thinkers, but those of us that can appreciate a range of ways to communicate are able to express sentiments through music, dance, art, poetry, shared experiences and multiple languages. To us there are no limits, other than the ones we impose on ourselves, and this makes life very interesting, but finding a kindred spirit is not going to be easy.
If you are a creative type, I'm begging you not to lose hope-- there is nothing wrong with being different and thinking outside the box. What is a problem is trying to conform-- attempts to conform to the mainstream way actually eat away at our souls. Each effort made to compromise will feel like small doses of poison that we are ingesting, and with every dose you will find yourself dying a slow, methodical death.
The choice to live is difficult when you feel that there is no one on this planet that truly understands you. And yes, it is a choice that we each make every day as we wake up and make the effort to engage with this crazy world, as opposed to ending all the pain and sorrow. As Hamlet's soliloquy so eloquently pointed out-- wouldn't it be easier to choose eternal sleep and perchance to dream instead of facing the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune? Indeed, it takes courage to truly engage with life-- and especially to make yourself vulnerable to another when you are in love. But what kind of life is worth living when you always play it safe? If you always keep your feelings so close to the vest, what does that really get you in the end?
Life is a great stage, where all of our passions are played out, and in my personal opinion the most passionate people seem to be the creative, artistic type-- and if you also happen to be Latin, wow, then it is just an out of this world experience. It all makes so much sense now, and so please believe me when I say that it may take you a very long time to find someone that can go with the free flow of your ideas, no matter which form of expression they may take, but hold out for that moment-- you will know when you find it because everything will just fit perfectly, and you won't feel like anything is lost in translation.
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