From ancient times, a great question still remains unanswered: What is the purpose of life? Why are we here?

I personally don’t claim to have the ultimate answer, but I’d like to share a perspective I’ve had in this life.


I think the purpose of this life is to love and be loved. All kinds of love. From giving a homeless man something to eat, to sharing the bed with your loved ones under the moonlight.

I’ve witnessed many types of love - love for a friend, love from a couple, love for a religion, love for those who are not on this earth anymore. Love for places we’ve departed from, are longing for and never been to.

And love for a similar being.

If you think about it, there’s not much to differentiate us: we’re all born the same way, develop similarly until a certain age, and love equally. And if we love equally, why can’t we love our equal?


I remember the first time I came to understand the concept of “someone being gay”. It was portrayed to me as a bad and detrimental thing. I don’t blame the person, for someone’s views are highly influenced by the society we live in - and I’m from Portugal. Portugal had a dictatorship until 1974, and AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome), caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), was first identified in the early 1980s. The first cases began to be diagnosed a little later, with the first case in my country being officially reported in 1983. 

Individuals associated AIDS with the gay community, and we had just left a fascist and conservative regime. Recipe for disaster for anyone who had a different sexual orientation and wanted to come out to their family. But thankfully, some people fought back.

Check the "activism clock":


O movimento LGBT EM Portugal: Datas E Factos (actualizado). Esquerda. (n.d.). https://www.esquerda.net/dossier/o-movimento-lgbt-em-portugal-datas-e-factos-actualizado/18142

Due to them, I can speak freely in this blog. Due to them, I can proudly say nowadays, some of the people I love the most in this world are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. From the Azores Islands to The Algarve, due their fight I can express 50 years after the revolution my pride in them, and the courage there still needs to exist to be your true self in a world and country in which things are yet still a bit black and white, but wherein splashes of colour are appearing from every corner. We just need to keep on sketching, painting and demanding for our pieces to be displayed in a museum that must include all human beings.

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