Steinbeck Model of “Paradox and Dream: Personal Essay

Victims of Love One of the generalities most often noted about Victims of Love is that we are impatient, incomplete, and unsatisfied once we discover what love is and that is possible for anyone to have. We complain when we want it, yet take it for granted when it’s ours. We say we cannot stand to live with our lovers, yet we proclaim it is unbearable to live without them. We claim to be strong and fearless, but in the face of love we fall weak to our knees with open arms reaching for all it has to offer. Love is endless, limitless, and powerful beyond measure.It has the ability to give you the best feeling no one other thing can, yet it has the power to hurt you beyond compare to anything else. We claim love is blinding to those lucky enough to have it, but are we really blind? Can we really not see beyond love’s overwhelming nature, or do we choose to not see the bad because its potential to be such a wonderful thing outweighs its negative qualities and its faults? On ce we fall victim to love and all it’s worth, an untamed fire is lit beneath the deepest layer of our hearts, burning brightly until greeted by the only conquerer of love- death.As we as victims of love believe, when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. We, as greedy, impatient people chase after love when we want it, yet we fail to realize we don’t find love, love finds us. We can choose who we hate, but we cannot control who we love. We love those who hurt us, but hurt those who love us. Victims of Love want to grasp onto love once they find it and never let it go, yet we learn that if you love someone, you have to set them free. We long to always be with those we love yet we are blind to see that distance makes the heart grow fonder.Because of this, we are left asking ‘what? ’. What is so addicting about love? Do we love imperfection, love to feel wanted, love the vision of love that ends with a happily ever after? I t is often portrayed that you cannot love what you do not know, yet, according to Paul Valery, it would be impossible to love anything or anyone completely because love is directed towards what lies hidden in its presence. We, as living paradoxes, fear the unknown, yet we have a passion and curiosity to know what lies beyond our existing knowledge.We search for our perfect vision of love, and we are disappointed with our results. We fail to see that true love doesn’t come by finding a perfect person, but by finding an imperfect person and learning to love them perfectly. We question to why sometimes love fails, but we make no effort to see it was our fault because we have failed to love. We are slaves to pleasure and pain once we have it, and use love as a motivation to find it. We try to make sense of love and the feelings that overcome us and thus become incapable of feeling it.We foolishly live a life for love instead of a having a life with love. When we have love, we fee l we do not need anything else and when we do not have it, we feel nothing else we have really matters. To have love is to have faith; those with little faith have little love and those with a lot of faith have a lot of love. We search for love with our thoughts and eyes and forget that love lies beyond what we see and think; it exists where we feel, it exists in our hearts. Love is a strange thing; it requires no inquisition, just acceptance.Love is an inevitable force of nature. We can choose to avoid it or choose to surrender to it, either way, it strikes back like lightening, unpredictable and irrefutable. Love does not come in favor of our own stipulations and conditions, hut it comes independently of our desires and wishes as does the moon, stars, and darkness of night with no regards to the day. Just as we may obtain the ability to control the time of night and day, we risk damaging a balance of laws without fully knowing the consequences of our intentions.In the same way, we practice elements of love, such as marriage or intercourse, yet we are left dismayed and puzzled, angered and suffering, questioning as to if our reason behind our insensible actions was truly love after all. We dream of a love inexplicable beyond words-one that proves without it, we are merely individuals limited to our ability of what we can do, but with it the boundaries are limitless with possibility at its fingertips. Our dream lies beyond not only understanding what love is, but also learning the ecret to keep its burning flame lit with passion and all the qualities that make for a perfect, successful expression of all that love is. We say we wish for a love without any pain, but how can we measure the power and endurance of that love if it only endures the easy road of life? What we truly, honestly long for is a love that shows its strength, surpassing even the most difficult obstacles and the harshest pain and coming out victorious, proving to us that in the end, love does conquer all.