DIFFERENT FACES, ONE HEART

By Ángela López

Do you have any words that you find pretty, inspiring or comforting? In my case, I would say "ineffable."  I love it because of the warmth of its sound when pronounced, and, because its meaning cannot be easily explained due to its characteristics of singular excellence. For example: "the expression of love on her face was ineffable, and it was all due to her close relationship with herself".  A few days ago, while writing one of the stories for my book, I came across a term that caught my attention: "Achromatopsia".  Basically, it is an ocular pathology in which one can only see in black and white.

And, although it is considered a rare disease, I couldn't help but think that, when it comes to emotional vision, it is quite normal to suffer from it. In a world fragmented by divisions, we tend to ignore the beautiful kaleidoscope that is our heart.  Desperately, we look for any reason to create boundaries and classifications between us.  This, in turn, triggers countless types of discrimination according to skin color, number of followers on social networks, titles hung on the wall, purchasing power, country of origin, etc.  Nevertheless, regardless of whether I am Colombian or not, I am still united with you, dear reader, by a race that does not distinguish from any kind of segmentation, namely, the human race. 

I deeply believe that to say that someone is superior to another person is not only cruel, but denotes total emotional illiteracy.  Definitely, illiterate is not only that person who does not know how to read, write or use the technological tools, but also the one who does not know the value of his brothers and sisters, because at the end of the day we all come from the same mother: The Earth.  Let us think, if the alphabet were only made up of the "T" or the "M", could we structure language? What would happen to communication? Each letter is different, not superior to the other... all are indispensable to build a language. In the same way, if we were all equal, we would lose the opportunity to know the intrinsic world that each one of us is. Besides, how boring and monotonous life would be!

Interestingly, although we have the ability to speak several languages, to send space probes to explore other planets, or to create architectural works of incalculable artistic value; we still do not master the language of love, we still underestimate our capabilities, and, unfortunately, we still do not discover that each and every one of us is a unique and unrepeatable work of art. The great poet Virgil said that "intelligence moves matter"; then, it is time to nourish our quotient of love (LQ), as the magnate Jack Ma advises.

Unfortunately, our diet for developing the art of love is not very nutritious. For years, we have fed on junk emotions such as indifference, guilt, self-centeredness, and apathy. Little by little we have saturated our emotional pathways with the deadliest of poisons: hate. As a result, we begin to suffer from chronic dehumanization.  That is why, before our natural rhythm to love stops, we must rehabilitate it with huge "love soups" - as my grandmother would say. 

Etymologically, the word heart, comes from the Latin cor. Later, looking for an augmentative, the word “heart” was used.  However, with time this word was definitively adopted to identify this muscular organ (no longer having anything to do with its size).  Nowadays, when we want to use an augmentation for heart, we usually say "to have a big heart". However, we always refer to the capacity to love of its owner, and not to its size. So, let's not be afraid to embrace our differences, because in this way we will learn that all of us, from "A" to "Z" are part of the same alphabet.

WWW.ANGELALOPEZ.CO