Brian Doyle has a unique and unconventional approach in his passage Joyas Voladores. He uses metaphors to convey human emotions and life. Doyle compares the heartbeat speed of the hummingbird and tortoise, which relates to the varying options of how people can live their lives. The fragile nature of life is stressed throughout the passage. One of the most complex human emotions, love, is described using blue whales. Doyle’s essay uses animals to capture the human experience: the need to be spontaneous, take hold of life, and fall in love.

Doyle titled the passage Joyas Voladores, which directly translates to flying jewels, the name that the first white explorers of the Americas gave the hummingbirds. The typical reader of the passage is much like the conquistadors and had little knowledge of the fast-paced life of the hummingbird at first. Doyle offers various pieces of evidence to support his indirect claim of their fast-paced life. The only thing that might be faster than the lifestyle of the hummingbird is its heartbeat. Doyle explains that “…their hearts are hammering faster than we could clearly hear if we pressed our elephantine ears to their infinitesimal chests” (Doyle 94). In the second paragraph Doyle elaborates more on the hummingbirds’ talents. such as being able to "dive at sixty miles an hour...[or] fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest" (Doyle 95). He quickly halters the sense of astonishment for what the hummingbirds are capable of. Doyle explains that “…when they rest they come close to death: on frigid nights…if they are soon not warmed, if they do not find that which is sweet, their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be” (Doyle 95). Doyle stresses the need to be a wholehearted person and to not let your heart become cold like the hummingbirds when they are asleep. He is implying that life is far too short for hatred, a cold heart can be that filled with evil and misfortune. Doyle wants humanity to be wholesome and caring for the rest of the people in the world rather than just themselves. From bearded helmet-crests to violet –capped wood nymphs, Doyle puts into perspective death once again by listing numerous types of hummingbirds. Regardless of the “thunderous wild heart” or each “mad heart,” all were silenced and stilled. By using all the various hummingbird types, Doyle is alluding that much like the hummingbirds and their endless species types, humans also come from all forms of backgrounds that are unique to themselves. He is further saying that although we all are different and offer varying experiences, we all have one thing in common; we are still humans. 

Doyle offers the idea of two opposite lifestyles in the form of a metaphor between a hummingbird and tortoise. Amid this paragraph he explains "the price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures more than any other living creature...You burn out. You fry the machine" (Doyle 95). Doyle’s focal point that is trying to be conveyed is that everyone has a choice on which lifestyle they want to live, the tortoise’s or the hummingbird’s. The choice to of living life like that of a tortoise consists of existing in a conservative manner with no true risks throughout life, however with the caution through life they in turn have a long lifespan. The opposite option of a life style reflects the life of the hummingbird. In the hummingbird’s life risks are often taken and rather than take life slowly they are consistently active. Doyle simply is stating the two options on how life can be lived but gives no privilege into which should be personally chosen. 

Doyle then explains the paradox of the blue whales’ heart. The blue whales’ heart offers an immeasurable ability to love, however refutes any chance to love another whale. Much like the hummingbird, Doyle relates personal connections with humans to that of the animal’s heart. Doyle explains that the blue whale’s heart “is a room” and a “house;” its valves are “as big as the swinging doors in a saloon” (Doyle 95). Doyle connects the whale to humans once again by saying that the whales have “diseases, spirituality, wars, stories, despairs and arts” that humans have simply not yet discovered (Doyle 95). Blue whales are an animal that humans don’t know a lot about. Yet, we know that they generally “travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles” (Doyle 96). The hearts allow the blue whales to offer vast amounts of love towards their soulmate, although the whales suffer a constant pain when the other half of the pair passes away. They will screech out and pierce the ocean for miles around with their moaning cries for the deceased soulmate. Their hearts are allowing them to love however forcing a consistent agony that slowly destroys the whale. 

Doyle argues that we all “we all churn inside.” He is saying that there is a certain driving factor behind life itself for everyone. Whether money, sex, drugs, and/or friendships are the motivation within their life, that is what is driving their actions. Through stating that we all churn inside, Doyle is also suggesting that every living being experiences a deviation, a sort of instability throughout life. Doyle is simply putting the statistical term, regression to the mean, into an applied state. Regression to the mean suggests that things will stop being all cruel or all good and return to a more neutral place in due time. Unfortunately, most people won’t experience a life in which the only best things are experienced. As humans, we learn to firstly, enjoy the good things while they last and secondly, don’t get so caught up in the good things that you think there is a certain invincibility to your life. 

The upside of everything is that this concept does flicker a small hope in us when the going gets rough and that is that while you may be having a rough time right now, it will not last. We are not destined to be hit with low periods of succession for the rest of our lives. At one point or another, things will start picking up once again and we will find our own brand of happiness.

"So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment" (Doyle 96). Doyle is alluding to the fact that life and more importantly every moment of life is something to take advantage of and live fully. Doyle then uses a house to describe how people are “utterly open with no one” even those whom they are the closest with. We “open up windows” meaning humans share aspects of their lives with others but will never fully reveal themselves to another due to the vulnerability associated. Doyle does suggest building up the walls of the heart to prevent from getting “bruised and scarred.” Humans can put up the metaphorical emotional barriers to prevent people from hurting us but to let someone in is to allow them to choose to love you or hurt you. There is a repetition of pain and love very like regression to the mean. Doyle leaves the essay with memorable events that are significant and typical in everyone’s life; "a child's apple breath...the words I have something to tell you...[or] the memory of your father's voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children (Doyle 96). Being the skilled writer that Doyle is, he didn’t simply put the run-on sentence in due to a grammatical error, he made the sentence continuous for a reason of course. The run-on sentence creates a theme of continuity much like that of life, Doyle is showing that although these hardships throughout life might create sorrow, life will continue on these and that you aren’t alone in the hard times because the struggles of are experienced by everyone. Doyle additionally put these memorable events in to remind the reader of how quickly the wall of the heart crumble. 

Naturally humans shield themselves from pain, which works in short term scenarios. But, in the extended future these barriers will cause a coldness and impenetrable layer so that nobody is ever let into one’s life. Just like the whales, we are meant to experience pain. The experience lets us can recognize true joy and happiness. Although Doyle creates a paradox by indicating that the heart gives all life but in turn is the end of one’s life as well. Doyle isn’t saying to demolish the barriers and leave yourself in a state of vulnerability. He is simply offering up a recommendation to become a conquistador, to find something new, to find your hummingbird.
