I do believe now that love is the only thing that can conquer fear. If we are lucky, we will reach a state of debilitating fear, frantically grasping for a savior as we are swallowed by desperation, and in this fit of rage as we hang on to sanity by one slipping finger, as we hang on to every excuse and blame that has crossed paths in the form of fate leading to our current state, and as our last finger slips, as we free fall into what we believe is a pit of defeat, we will find the purest essence of love.

Poet Paul Laurence Dunbar insightfully wrote, “for if we mortals love, or if we sing, we count our joys not by the things we have, but by what kept us from the perfect thing.” At first, I found it mortifying for him to suggest that we shouldn’t be happy with what we have because satisfaction will keep us from perfection, since I’ve always believed that it’s actually treasuring every moment through the journey to perfection that keeps the journey positive and motivated in the first place. We can’t possibly be discontent with everything until everything is perfect. Not only is that not living, but that’s also never knowing what individual perfection is if we no not the history of imperfections. However, I don’t think we have to know hate to know love, or to taste oysters to love chocolate. It seems to be that the mortally perfect things in life need no comparison, no past and no future, for us to know that they are perfection. All perfection needs is hope.

So maybe that’s what Dunbar was saying. Maybe he’s saying that we cant just stop to cherish the joys we have just because they’re starting to get good. We must not be content to the point where we lose the strive towards perfection. Maybe we are to count our joys and build them through perpetual hope. For if we count them as finished actions, we count ourselves out of reaching perfection. The key to preventing compliancy is by being honest with ourselves. If not, we curse ourselves with our own joys.

So maybe Dunbar’s poem is a warning. If mere mortals that we are have the grace to love or to sing, we are not to corrupt it with caution, but see it all the way through to perfection.