ONLY A WORLD OF LOVE CAN LAST A LIFETIME - translation of the original by Miguel Esteves Cardoso

                             

Some things aren't meant to be understood. This is one of them. I have something to say and I don't know how to say it. Therefore, much of what I'm about to say might be uncomprehensible. It is my fault. What  might be uncomprehensible is because it is meant to be that way. It is not due to a lack of clarity. I will be really clear about it. Myself I know very little about what I have to say right now. But I know I have to say it.

What I want to do is the compliment of pure love. Seems to me that no one truly falls in love these days anymore. No one wants to live an impossible love anymore. No one accepts to love without a good reason for it anymore. People these days fall in love for a practical reason. Because it comes in handy. Because they're colleagues and they are right there. Because they get along and don't bother each other that much. Because it makes sense. Because it is cheaper, because of the house. Because of the bed. Because of the panties and the pants and the laundry bill.

These days people make pre-nupcial agreements, they discuss everything in advance, they make plans and due to any little shitty issue they go on "dialogues". Love now is passable of being arranged. Lovers have become partners. They reunite, discuss issues, they make decisions. Love as become a variation of a psico-social-bio-ecological fellowship. Passion, which should be unmeasured, as turned out as far as possible. Love as become a practical issue. The result is that people, in place of really falling in love,  become "almost" in love.

I want to make the compliment of pure love, of blind love, of the stupid love, of the sick love, of the only true love there is, I'm sick of conversations, I'm sick of comprehensions, sick of conveniences of service.
I have never seen couples as brutish, as cowards and as compliants as the ones of today. Uncapable of a large gesture, of taking a risk, of a boldness act, they're a race of 'phoneys' and canteen henchmen, folks of the "alright, all good", espresso takers / drinkers, commitment achievers, wimpers, boots, romance killers, *romanticidals*. Is it possible that no one falls in love these days anymore? Is it possible that no one accepts pure passion, missing someone endlessly, the sadness, the unbalance, the fear, the cost, the love, the disease which is like a cancer eating up our heart and that at the same time sings to us in it?

Love is one thing, life is another. Love it not meant to be a little help. It is not meant to be the relief, the rest, the break, the tap in the back, the refreshing break, the first aid station of the tortuous road of life, our "come on, give me some sentimental little help here". I hate this contemporary fad of "soup and rest". I hate these new little couples. Wherever one looks at, one cannot see romance anymore, screaming, crazyness, stabbing, embraces, flowers. Love has closed its store. It was trespassed to the slippers folks and to the serenity. Love is love. It is that beauty. It is that danger. Our love is not meant to understand us, it's not meant to help us, it's not meant to make us happy. It can or it cannot. Whatever. It is a matter of bad luck.

Our love is not meant to love us, to all of a sudden take us to the sky, just in time for us to still catch some open hell. Love is one thing, life is another. Life sometimes kills love. Our "little life" is a murderer coexistence. Pure love is not a medium, it is not and end on itself, it is not a beginning, it is not a destination. Pure love is a condition. It has as much to do with each one's lives as the weather. Love isn't comprehensible. It is not meant to be. Love is a state of those who feel themselves. Love is our soul. It is our soul unfolding. It is our soul all of a sudden chasing what it doesn't know of, what it cannot catch, what it doesn't gets lose of, what it doesn't understands.

Love is a truth. That is why the illusion is needed. The illusion is pretty, that is OK. Let it invent and lie and dream whatever it wants to. Love is one thing, life is another. Reality can kill, love is more beautiful than life. Screw life. In a moment, in a look, a heart is forever taken. We love someone. It doesn't matter how far, how hard it is, how desperately. The heart keeps what escapes from our hands, and during the day and during our lives, when the one we love is not there, it isn't our lives what goes along with us - it is our love, the love we have for that one. It isn't meant to be understood. It is a sign of pure love not to understand, to love and not to have, to want and not holding the hope, to ache without being hurt, to live by ones own, sad, but more accompanied by those who live happy. One cannot give away. One cannot resist. Life is one thing, love is another. Life lasts a Life time, love doesn't. Only a world of love can last a lifetime. And being worth it as well.

- Miguel Esteves Cardoso, in 'Expresso'Newspaper
- Original article:
http://www.citador.pt/textos/so-um-mundo-de-amor-pode-durar-a-vida-inteira-miguel-esteves-cardoso