Saudade: an essay that goes nowhere

16 Jun, 2026

Saudade is a Portuguese term. As far as I am aware there's no real translation for it. At least not in languages spoken by yours truly. Simple nostalgia or melancholy won't do it justice. Wikipedia defines it as an emotional state of melancholic or profoundly nostalgic longing for a beloved yet absent someone or something, often associated with a repressed understanding that one might never encounter the object of longing again. A recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events, often elusive, that cause a sense of separation from the exciting, pleasant, or joyous sensations they once caused. I first heard the word in an episode of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown, and immediately identified with it. Hence this post.

I know the feeling of saudade. At least, I think I do. I've known a relentless pressure on chest and mind. I've experienced the daylong unescapable thoughts, which morph into dreams at night. That feeling of constant longing present in one's heart. Nothing to be done but undergo.

Am I romanticising anxiety?

Anxiety, to me, is a lingering feeling about something that could happen. Something that might happen, though unlikely or unreasonable. This saudade, to me, again, lives in the past. An unrecoverable past one enjoyed vividly. A past you might wish you hadn't experienced because of the hurt its absence causes. There is no regret for the conclusion, but the wish of having stalled time leading up to it. A want for a do-over. Not to change the past, not to improve it, but to relive it, regardless of whether it elapses as it did originally.

An inherently human sentiment.

Those who preach living in the present are wrong, says I. Our puny present doesn't allow for anything meaningful. No time for thoughts, feelings, reflections,... Forget about the future altogether. By definition you cannot live there. You could die reading this. What's the point of tomorrow? We are, then, left with the past as home.

This makes sense to me. Everything worthwhile is born in the past. The artist has to lean on what they've lived to create. Their emotions must linger, their encounters endure before they are able to paint, write, sing, draw, dance,... A politician had to be bullied before turning into a tw-t.

One's present is meaningless if not looking back. There is no present if not for the past. True constant present could only be achieved by invariably acting on instinct. Mankind, conversely, no longer has the capacity to act instinctively. In short, we have no instincts left¹. Not since society's school moulded us into mice. Source: Another Brick in the Wall, Part Two - Pink Floyd. Watch the video. Factual documentary. Song isn't bad either.

Burroughs² writes about opposing the creation of such mice, which he calls replicas that reduce or break human individuality:

We must reject the facile solution of flooding the planet with 'desirable replica's. [...] Even the most intelligent and genetically perfect replicas would in all probability constitute an unspeakable menace to life on this planet... [...] We oppose, as we oppose atomic war, the use of such knowledge to control, coerce debase, exploit, or annihilate the individuality of another living creature. (p.140)

I believe people love people. I love people. No one likes the masses. No one likes being reduced to a mass. We feel like us and they feel like them. Better still, I feel like myself, you feel like yourself because we are different. Starting to sound like Descartes³. Cogito ergo sum with a pinch of deus ex machina and this post might finally start making some sense.

We must be different. We've lived differently, known different events. Our background makes us. If we are to be individual, we must take into account our past, for we are it. Incapable of being anything else.

Biographical criticism, not limited to writing, not limited to art. Biographical criticism for every aspect of life, preaches I.

I promise I'm trying to bring it back to the original topic. Memories are superior to current experiences (if there is such a thing). Unlike the present, one is able to relish and savour their memories. One can equally abhor or despise these. Disregard proves impossible. You build new memories based on transpired examples.

I am aware of the spiralling. Bear with me.

A human is a collection of lived occurrences. When the body dies these happenings live on as memories inside others. Humanity is nothing but memory. This memory doesn't even have to be personal, doesn't even have to be true. Those who study history weren't there. The learnings are based off memories of people who were, who told people who weren't, who told people who weren't, who told people who definitely weren't. "¿Cómo es posible sentir nostalgia por un mundo que nunca conocí?", wrote one Ernesto Guevara. As we all know nostalgia is used because he is not Portuguese. If he was Portuguese, or Brazilian even, he would have undoubtably exclaimed saudade.

Che ex machina to bring me back to my original topic. Works every time. Cheers!

[fin]

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