For as long as human beings have been able to think, they’ve had the desire to understand the truths of life. In ‘The Allegory of the Cave’, when referring to these desires Plato states, “God knows whether it is true”. When trying to answer many of life’s questions people usually have conflicting views that can never be proven true. Which makes you wonder, is truth even meant for humans to understand? It has been proven time and time again throughout history that truth is an extremely powerful thing. We’ve been told the power of truth since we were children, to always be truthful and always try to find yours. However realistically, most people don’t live their everyday life knowingly on a pursuit to find truth. They just live day-to-day following whatever path they choose. It’s very easy to state that truth is powerful, the difficult thing is to fully grasp just how powerful it is and what that term even means.
According to many philosophers and religious people, truth is a heavenly element. The reason for this feeling is that no matter how much we theorize and how much we debate we, as people will never understand the complete truth of life. Therefore theoretically if God created all things, including truth, then he would be the only one to fully know what it means. Also consider that truth is drastically different to different people. If it were possible to ask God what the true meaning of truth is, it would uniformly change everyone’s personal belief of the matter. That is unless the one true truth is that everyone does in fact have their own truth and its up to them to figure it out for themselves. If that were indeed it than we have actually known truth all along but the debating of it is really truly useless.
But what if we are looking for truth in the wrong form? Could the truth we have been searching centuries for, actually be totally different than what we expected. Emily Dickenson wrote, “For beauty… and I for truth, the two are one; we brethren are'. Could truth indeed be just that in the form of beauty? After having so much trouble finding the truth maybe it’s possible that it’s all around us. This doesn’t take away from the theory that everyone has their own truth, in fact they work hand in hand. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so just as your truth may be different from mine, you might see beauty in different places. Regardless, everybody sees beauty. Beauty is in everything, so why can’t it be in everyone. Sticking with the belief that truth is heavenly, keep in mind God also created the things that people find beauty in. He created the landscapes and the people who spark beauty not only into the eye, but also into the soul. There are thousands of moments throughout life that a person can reflect on and see the beauty. These are the moments that become memories. Memories shape people into who they are, who they will become, and how they will live on after death. Our whole existence is full of memories, we learn from them, we laugh at them, we cry over them all until we become them. Fact of life is that when a person dies they simply become memories for everyone else.
Furthering that belief, what if truth is not just all around us in but in us as well? Love is in between heaven and hell. Love can heal and love can hurt and in the healing and warmth we find beauty. The same beauty we find all around us, however this form is more pure. The loving form of beauty is capable of making you feel as close to fulfilled as anything else mortal life has to offer. When talking about finding your truth in life, anything that makes you feel fulfilled in this sense must be pretty close to it. For that reason believing love in all it’s earthly forms is the truth we should be striving to attain throughout life. Surrounding yourself with people who love you is a normal human action. It’s a primal instinct to want have people that won’t harm you as your closest acquaintances. Most people in the world would agree that their happiest moments are spent with loved ones. The people in life where unconditional love goes both ways are the people you can see truth in. That truth is something that everybody in life can find. For some it may be harder than others, but keep in mind that love can come from anyone at anytime. Love doesn’t always come from family or a partner it comes from everyone. The small acts of love that can make people come together are more powerful than most people can ever understand. The impact and reach a small showing of love and kindness can achieve is incredible and I would argue that truth is the driving factor behind all of it.
Truth is powerful. We have heard that since we were children. Its may be slightly easier to understand just what that means to us now. The pursuit of the truth drives all elements of human life. But what exactly is it? If that question could be answered it would save a lot of people a lot of time trying to figure it out. I believe the best way to answer that question is that it depends. Truth depends on the person seeking it out. Truth is behind everything for everyone, but truth is different for everyone. Truth is beauty, but truth is also ugliness. Truth is love, but truth is also hate. What truth is is unimportant. What truth does is vital to our existence as human beings. Everybody’s chase for their own truth makes the world go round, and the truth itself drives their pursuit to find it. We may never fully understand it, but truth is powerful and truth is everything and truth is in all of us.