That is all we have, this moment with the world. It will not last, because nothing lasts. Entropy, mortality, extinction: the entire plan of the universe consists of losing, and no matter how much we find along the way, life amounts to a reverse savings account in which we are eventually robbed of everything. Our dreams and plans and jobs and knees... See more

“Duende” and “saudade” are kin. Both insist that anguish and ecstasy are not opposites but accomplices, that beauty doesn’t arrive without a wound. Lorca knew it.

In Romanian there’s a word that sits in the same constellation: “dor”. It has no true translation, a combination of longing, love, grief, but mostly that unbearable sweetness of absence... See more

Yet the fundamental loss remains—it doesn’t just dissipate—and, in a strange way, I think it can become a magnet for other losses. We come to see we are all simply creatures carrying around our ever-deepening loss. Small griefs seem to collect around the bigger primary grief. I think this realization allows us to become a true human being.