Peace

PEACE


Peace, She is a shadow,
A Phantom cast from every Man’s longing.
Deliciously dancing just beyond reach,
A dichotomy that cannot soothe the weary soul.

As you can see from the above verse, I believe that Peace is unobtainable, i.e., if indeed Peace is a shadow of every man’s longing, then if one were to obtain Peace, there would be no more longing for Peace that produces the shadow that is peace. Therefore, the longing for Peace and obtaining Peace are mutually exclusive making it (Peace) a dichotomy. I hope I didn’t lose you in explaining the verse, but hopefully a further explanation of why I believe that Peace is indeed a shadow will be helpful and then perhaps the verse can be accepted as the truth in the matter. First, most all agree that Peace is in reality, the absence of strife. The absence of strife, best described as being a human condition where mindless bliss would prevail, is a situation where only mindless life could enjoy. Because mankind has been blessed with a cognitive mind that is always on the job, bliss is more of a fanciful notion rather than human reality. Therefore, I believe that strife is as much a part of human life and living as eating, drinking, thinking and breathing, so living without strife, is another mutually exclusive situation. The reason that I believe strife is a part of life is due to the nature that life has been designed, or has developed, if you prefer. Most agree that we all have a survival instinct hard wired into our life’s architecture and that instinct drives us to compete with other life for the planet’s resources to ensure survival of ourselves as well as our families. That competition for the planets resources, in its most basic form, is that if life is to endure on this planet, life must feed upon life to do so. You may think that this is an unpleasant situation, but it does not change the fact, and the reality is, humans sit atop the food chain. If any of the readers of this piece has been brave enough to read my book, The Grace of Being, you will know that I went into a very long and boring logical explanation why life is required to feed upon life. Nevertheless, regardless if you believe it or not, or understand the reason for it, life must feed upon life in order to survive and endure. I always marvel at the naiveté that vegetarians display when they explain they are vegetarians because they are abhorred at the thought of feeding upon once living flesh while they instead feed upon plant life and the embryos of plant life (seeds like wheat, oats, etc.) that is endowed with the exact same life giving DNA as animal life. Make no mistake about it, DNA is that which defines all life on this beautiful blue planet, and plant DNA is as much alive as animal life (which includes humans). But I digress. Competing for resources is a very stressful and the resulting competition promotes strife in all of its forms and this situation makes peace a dichotomy. I further believe that in addition to the survival instinct there is also a dominance instinct that drives us to be competitive amongst those of our own kind (humans) in order to satisfy the “survival of the fittest” demands of evolution. The continuous competition that our instincts demand will ensure that strife will be our companion as long as we enjoy the gift of life and there can be no such thing as peace, indeed, only death (the absence of life) brings peace. This should be a very sobering realization that we all personally and collectively keep striving for something that is unobtainable. However, this situation, if true, should not be cause for despair. The human race has developed into a social society that has made use of our cognitive abilities to institute rules, laws and behavior conventions to manage strife by fostering benevolent civil competition as a substitute for unbridled competition that our instincts demands. History has proved that a law-based society that requires benevolent civil competition as a nondestructive means to advance and endure, is a workable situation that is as close to peace as can be managed even though it still creates manageable strife. Surely you can immediately see that when our laws, social and behavior conventions fail, and our most basic instincts are allowed to gain control, unbridled competition will foster the greatest competition of all. War. And if our advanced technology is use to gain advantage in a great war, then the destruction of us all will be our reward, and at long last, Peace.