I have always been fascinated by truth. It is such a powerful and profound word that encompasses so much. Truth has played a huge part in my life, as it goes hand in hand with freedom. So many times in life we repeatedly tell ourselves lies until we believe them to be truth. In one of Missy Higgins songs she says, " lies will lock you up with truth the only key." From my own experiences this is such a profound statement; freedom can only come when we accept, believe, and live out truth in our lives. Truth changes everything-beginning with our perspectives, which in turn trickles down to our thoughts and actions. 

This summer I was hit with a new realization: the idea that different peoples' view of truth can influence their actions, how they love, and help me to better understand them. I learned this year the reality of the saying, "there's two sides to every story." I heard many different views and opinions dealing with the same situation. It showed me how often it's not that there is simply truth and lie, or that one person is right and the other wrong, but instead that each person is acting in response to what they believe is true. 

Both in my own life and the situation this summer caused me to ponder at length the concepts of truth, love, and perception. This has lead me to question  how does the perception of truth affect love?

In my summer novel, Atonement by Ian McEwan, this question reflects some of the primary themes that are threaded throughout the story. The entire novel is based on perspective and is continually written from different characters' viewpoints. The reader, having an omnipresent point of view, can observe how each character lives in response to the foundation in what they believe to be truth, whether it be a truth perverted, genuine, or neither. This reality produces a series of painful consequences and ruined relationships. Cecelia grows an intense hatred for her sister Briony due to her perception that Briony knowingly destroyed her relationship with her love, Robbie. Similarly, Briony lives out her life mirroring her truth that she needs to atone for her crime and yet cannot acomplish the feat to redeem herself or her broken relationships because in reality it was an accidental misconception that needs to be healed through forgiveness. Both of these aspects, perception and truth are major influencing factors in how each of the characters love each other and themselves both internally and externally. 

In the play,  Oedipus Rex, Oedipus lives out his entire life believing in the truth of the prophecy that he will marry his mother and kill his father and  in response does everything in his power to prevent this unfortunate fate. Following him throughout his life, we observe how Oedipus naively falls in love with his mother and marries her. Even up until the conclusion to the play, Oedipus defends his actions and denies the reality of his situation because the truth of his sin does not parallel his perception of his relationships; he does not believe his life and relations to be corrupt and perverse and thus lives accordingly. He loves his wife and mother, children and half-siblings, and people of Thebes to the best of his ability, which could be considered noble in different circumstances, through the lens that he was pure. Likewise, later in the play he acts out his love to his city and children by maiming and exiling himself with his awareness of the truth that he was  guilty of a unnatural fate. Oedipus's love is directly correlated to his perception of truth.