
Hearts are imperceptible. They are bloody organs responsible for keeping us alive, day in and day out. Without them, creatures on planet Earth would have nothing to power their minds and bodies. Hearts literally give us life. By us, I am referring to everything on the spectrum of life, from the souls of humans, to the microscopic motors in ants. Hearts have the most important task imaginable, and yet, humans cannot possibly understand the magnitude of it. Humans have studied the physical aspects of the heart, in all different creatures, and we are masters of it in that aspect. What we have not done, and cannot possibly do, however, is fully comprehend the emotional ties and feelings that lie within each and every one of our hearts. Hearts are beautiful, and they allow us to pursue our everyday activities. They give us hope and allow us to love, but they are also responsible for opposing, negative emotions, ones that we do not neccessarily want to feel or experience. Joyas Volardores, a short poetical essay by Brian Doyle, encapsulates everything of value in reference to the heart. 

Doyle uses metaphors and comparisons to relate the hearts of two very different creatures to the bigger picture, human life. As it can be unclear what the message is at first, by the end, multiple interpretations can be drawn from it. Doyle starts his piece with a broad generalization and forces us to consider multiple possibilities. In my opinion, the structure of Doyle’s essay using the two animals is like two faces of a coin, things that are very different, but also, inseparable and universal. The principle of life that is portrayed in Joyas Volardores can be applied to everyone and everything.  Humans are created in a way to experience happiness and sorrow, and despite hardships in our lives, we cannot shield ourselves in defense just because we are worried of what is to come. Our lives were not intended to be lived that way. If we live in fear, we will not experience the amazing things in life. Mindset is everything.

A protected heart will never fully experience all of life’s emotions. As Doyle said in his essay, “Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime” (95). In order to appreciate every positive, cheerful emotion in life, we must also experience all of the negative ones too. But why? It is simply because humans conceptualize things antithetically, by means of opposites. If we breezed through life without challenges, pain, and sorrow, then we would never fully understand the greatness of good emotions and feelings. The good things would be dismissed as routine and ordinary, and therefore; they would not be as special. Consider family vacations. If a family took their children to Disney World twice a year, the trip would not be memorable or special. If the same family traveled to different places every other year, then the experiences would each hold a special place in the family’s hearts. This example primarily illustrates the same principle. Without change, we get used to things and do not appreciate them like we really should. Humans need bumps in the road to fully appreciate the smooth parts. 

People are always busy, and I mean always. Doyle begins his poetical essay talking about hummingbirds. At first glance, it seems as though Doyle is simply describing them for the sake of informing the reader about what they are and what they do. In actuality, Doyle is referring to humanity as a whole.  Doyle describes how the hummingbirds came into existence and writes, “more than three hundred species of them whirring and zooming and nectaring in hummer time zones nine times removed from ours…” (94). Humans come from all around the world, and we all come from different races. We look different, speak differently, and even smell differently; however, we all share common experiences, whether they be positives or negatives. In that way alone, we can relate to the grandest extent. There are over three-hundred species of hummingbirds, as Doyle states in his essay. He is using a hummingbird to relate them to the most intricate species of all, humans. Hummingbirds are very busy creatures, as are humans. They have incredible endurance and can fly all day long, but “when they come to rest they come close to death” (95). This is because of how fast their hearts pump oxygen, and because of their extremely rapid metabolisms. Doyle includes this in his essay to further make a comparison between humans and hummingbirds. Humans always have something on their minds, just like hummingbirds. We are constantly performing daily tasks, running errands, and countless other things all the time. It can be hard to navigate through life at times.  Because we are so busy nonstop, the moment we have nothing to do can sometimes be the breaking point for some people. Certain people need constant attention and involvement to keep them happy. When these people have absolutely nothing to do, they can tend to have incredibly bad thoughts that turn them in the wrong direction. Unfortunately for hummingbirds, they also need to be flying all the time because of how they are made to function. If they pause from flights, bad things can happen. The hummingbird lives a very short life, but one that is jam-packed with experiences. On the other side of the table, there is the blue whale. 

Doyle transitions from a hummingbird to a blue whale in the second half of his essay. He immediately brings up the enormous size of the blue whale’s heart. It has “the biggest heart in the world” (95). There are about ten-thousand blue whales, spread out everywhere across planet Earth, and yet “of the largest animal who ever lived we know nearly nothing” (95). Doyle continues and writes “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 and miles” (96). There is a heavy underlying meaning in Doyle’s references. He is not talking about blue whales. He is talking about humans, about people. Humans are relatively large creatures, and we do generally connect with others through love. When this love grows strong enough, we marry one another, and travel through the remainder of our lives in pairs. Similarly to blue whales, our pain and cries can be heard all over. They affect family and friends and truly have an impact on multiple lives depending on the situation. The emotions that we feel in our hearts drift to others. They are felt by others. Nothing significant leaves the page without impact. “We all churn inside” (96). 

Doyle uses two completely different animals in his essay to help usher his point. The animals serve as a metaphor for human life. Everyone spends their lives in ways that can vary drastically. We each live to a different age. Hummingbirds barely get any time to live, while other animals are granted eternities. People are different, as are animals, but we all value the same things; love, excitement, and fulfillment. And we all go through the similar experiences driven by our unique hearts. Our hearts burst with emotions. They churn with bitter disappointment, and they melt with bursts of joy. Even though people share their lives with one another, we each “live alone in the house of the heart” (96). Our fragile hearts are where we put all of our trust into. They are all we know. What is most important, highlighted by Doyle, is not to “brick up your heart” (96). Lives can change in an instance, and people need one another to get through pain, pain that each and every one of us are meant to experience. Never close yourself off to others. After all, the heart is the only thing in which we come together, our fragile wonders. 
