Joyas Voladoras Essay

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Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle is one of the most powerful essays I have ever read. Being slightly over two pages, this essay perfectly captures the reality of a human heart and the pain of love. I was more drawn to the part where we are to “live alone in the house of the heart”(p9) That we are independent from each other, that our perspectives are unique and individualized; people will never be able to fully understand our perspective because they have to live in their own house, too, just like how “we don’t know nearly nothing of a life of the blue whale”. We at least can know a bit about its heart. The hummingbird is going to die, and each heartbeat is killing it, but it continues to live in order to enjoy the nectar that also powers its heart. The blue whale continues to live despite finding something heartbreaking to moan about, for example the death of its pair. And we too must continue to live despite the striking moments of life into our hearts. Doyle explains that the hummingbird’s heart races incredibly fast, so much so that they often experience heart-failure or aneurysms–more than any other creature. The nature of the racing of their hearts is such that their lives are very short. “Hummingbirds can fly more than five hundred flies without pausing to rest, but when they rest they come close to death: on frigid nights, or when they are starving, they retreat into torpor…their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be”(p6) Doyle explains that the biggest heart in the world is that of a blue whale. It ways seven tons!! There are about 10,000 blue whales in the world and “of the largest mammal that ever lived we know nearly nothing.” But Doyle goes on to write, “But we know this: the animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles

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