There are counterfeit handbags that are almost perfect.

The logo. The buckle. The stitching. Even the packaging in which they come.

At a glance it is hard to spot the difference. You have to come closer. Touch the leather. Smell it. Study a seam. Look at the underside.

A counterfeit does not try to look false. Its success lies precisely in resembling the original so closely that it comes to replace it.

Something similar happens with certain foods.

The wrapper keeps the same colors as always. The shape is almost identical. Even the taste vaguely recalls the one we knew.

Perhaps at first we notice it: a strange texture, an excessive sweetness that lingers too long in the mouth.

Then the palate grows used to it.

It tastes like chocolate. Yes. But it isn’t chocolate.

When we savor an imitation for long enough, something worse than deception can happen: we forget the taste of the original. We simply stop noticing the difference.

Substitutes have installed themselves in our words as well — in the words that name the things that matter most.

We call rest that which is nothing but doomscrolling. Communication, the ceaseless exchange of messages. Freedom, living without ties that bind. Love, the emotion that makes us tremble.

Not everything in those experiences is false. A screen can entertain and be useful. Messages can bring us closer. An emotion can turn into language.

We look for happiness in what we choose. But the substitute can distract us with its flavor and end by confusing us.

Pleasure is in a hurry. It arrives, it shines, it goes out. When it disappears it leaves a brief satisfaction behind. Soon it is hungry again.

Happiness, by contrast, can sit down beside pain without fleeing the room. Not because pain is good, but because it does not always have the last word.

Pleasure demands that nothing interrupt its party. That is why, when we confuse the two, any suffering looks like a malfunction to be eliminated as soon as possible.

The deception is never harmless. The body, too, learns to be confused. When we grow used to prefabricated flavors that are ever more intense, what is simple begins to seem bland.

The palate asks for more sweetness, more salt, more stimulation. While we believe that only our taste has changed, the way we feed ourselves may be changing as well.

At other times the deception quietly changes the names of things. It hollows them out. It separates what can only be understood together: love, sex, and children; freedom, choice, and commitment; truth and unity.

And one day we discover that we no longer show what we are, but what we believe others are prepared to approve.

We have to look happy. We have to look free. We have to look loved. We have to look as though all is well.

Appearance then ceases to be an ornament. It becomes a demand.

We can look at one and the same reality from different places. We may fail to understand it completely. We may even be wrong.

But things do not change their nature because we have lost the palate for recognizing them.

What is, is. What is not, is not.

Perhaps for years we have been drinking something that quiets thirst without hydrating our body. Perhaps we once knew the original taste and slowly forgot it.

That is why it is not enough to tear off the wrapper. Truth does not humiliate. Nor does it need to shout. Sometimes it is enough for it to brush the palate and wake a memory.

There is a difference between the good life and the life that is good.

The good life tends to have shop windows. It displays itself. It is photographed. It is recounted.

The life that is good has another density. It can hide in a fidelity no one applauds, in a renunciation that is never known, in a presence that remains when leaving would have been easier.

It does not always produce pleasure. But it does produce joy. It does not do away with suffering, but it keeps pain from filling everything.

It does not need to look full. Its fullness is interior.

Substitutes are so tempting because they offer us the taste without the waiting; the appearance without the substance; the emotion without the self-giving; the result without the road.

And yet something is always missing. At first we barely notice it. But the hunger remains.

Perhaps we have tried to satiate it with something incapable of truly satisfying it.

Because the heart was not made to settle for an imitation of the good. It was made to recognize the Good.

And perhaps a crack in the wrapper is enough. A badly finished seam. A taste that no longer convinces. A joy that lasts less than it promised.

Then someone holds up to us the scent of something true… there is no need to explain it.

The palate stops. Something wakes.

It tastes like bread, but it isn’t bread.

It tastes like wine, but it isn’t wine.

Love has remained!

To be our food!