Author: Katerina Topalova
‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ – writes the unrepeatable Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In this novel, he talks about love, old age and death, but also about the glorification of existence, because life, more than death, has no boundaries. With the aging of the characters in the novel, slowly dies out a country tortured from diseases and wars. What amazes me is that through the pages prevails the sense of optimism because of the topic of the meaning of life, love, and life in the name of love.
In this column, I would not be related to two characters, like Garcia to Florentino Arisa and Fermina Dasa. I would relate to the way the writer describes love and the struggle for love in times of evil illness.
We are undoubtedly living a time that will be a history. No one ever imagined that in a lifetime they would experience a mixture of fear and uncertainty, the need to invade an invisible enemy. Now more than ever we have been put in a test first and foremost what does- health, family and freedom mean to us.
This is a time when we will learn that money does not give us conscience, that status in society does not give us immunity from diseases and that it is not true that nothing can stop us from fulfilling some of our obligations. In these moments of temptation and anticipation, we realize how small and fragile we are. Greatness is in our heart and the ability to distinguish good from evil. The need to be friends and close. How many calls did you receive these days? From who? These are your people!
We keep saying that we have too many obligations and too little time for the loved ones. Now that we have that freedom we longed for, we do not know what to do with it. Our children are strenuous for us, we try at all cost to be interesting and accessible on social networks, we find fault in everything that tries to fight the virus.
This kind of social lab looks at how states and people behave in an emergency. Struggling for limited resources, people become beasts, very rarely willing to cooperate and be solider.
It is now clear who and how much are willing to sacrifice freedom.
At this time, you will also understand the power of the state. The weaknesses of the system will inevitably come to light. This is a time when world power is not only weapons and state security, but also power and efficiency.
Threats are often invisible, but potentially very dangerous. The accident brings former opponents closer together. It has always been so, and it must be so now in this common disaster.
That metal shield that we have been building in our hearts for years does not allow the good feeling to get out of it. It is time for love! To love each other, to love those around us, our partner, our family. This pandemic of dangerous infection can give birth to that in us. Because we were born from ourselves. We have forgotten where we are and why we are here. Now that we all have the same enemy, when each of us is at the same distance from life and death, we need to realize that we have no time for anything but love. And our optimism must be constantly intertwined like the one on the pages of Marquez.