Why don’t people give up? What has caused us to carry on throughout even the darkest of circumstances? How do we look towards the future as something bright and wonderful and full of potential while much of our past has been mere disappointment?

Love.

You know, I recently read a review about how Shailene Woodley and the management of the Divergent movie selected the actor who would be portraying Four, later revealed as Tobias. She said something that I really understand and admire. She said that while many handsome, tough-looking dudes tried out for the role of Tobias, a fit, imposing trainer with a surprising past, only one person precisely fit the description of Tobias: “masculine yet vulnerable.”

And I feel like that’s what love is, in its own way; it is not masculine, necessarily, but strong, and in its truest essence, unbreakable. And while unbreakable things tend to remain obstinate, love is but a translucent drape upon the human condition. It is a column, a rock, a barrier, a connection, a gentle snowfall, a lazy rain, a sunny day, a brisk night. It is everything good, and nothing bad. Love is something for which I yearn- and I think all people do, for that matter. We all want to be happy, and love is the absolute core around which happiness can propagate.

Today I watched Les Miserables, my favorite musical, again. I think that the reason it affects me so much is that Jean Valjean is a man that I strive to become like. Inspired by Victor Hugo’s epic novel, the musical Les Miserables is set in post-revolutionary France, where poverty, hunger, and crime run rampant. After the plights of wartime, French citizens try to the best of their abilities to persevere, to find and maintain work, to feed their families. Such is the case for Jean Valjean who, in desperately attempting to feed his sister’s children, is forced to steal a loaf of bread. For this legal infraction, Valjean is sentenced to five years in prison, and is later given an additional fourteen years for attempting to escape.

Although he enters prison as an honest man, years of cruelty and harsh labor have turned Valjean into a bitter person, something he never wanted to be. He was imprisoned, made callous by his unfair punishment, and emerged hating the cruel world that had so carelessly handled him.

However, he manages to recreate himself; not like Gatsby, in the pursuit of wealth and fame, constructing a mere façade of accolades, but in the most honorable of ways, through honesty and purity and truth and love. The Bishop of Digne taught Valjean to love, and for that he is eternally grateful both to the bishop and God. He perpetuates this love by rescuing Fantine, adopting Cosette, volunteering with the rebels of the barricade, and saving Marius, a man whom he knew would be taking away the love of his life, his daughter, Cosette, forever. Even after going through such daunting measures to save Marius, he mentions to no one the risks he put himself at to save the boy. He takes credit for nothing, though the true credit is entirely his.

He looks not to accolades for fulfillment, but is fulfilled by knowing that somebody was bettered because of him. That ability to be satisfied by knowing that you’ve helped someone, that your actions have made their time on this Earth more pleasant or manageable or enjoyable- that is true love. And, in the same token, as the Bishop speaks upon the beautiful conclusion of Valjean’s life on Earth, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” Once there is love, there is revelation.