Making Peace

I’ve made my peace with life and living.

Now I’m making my peace with aging and dying.

My hope is that by the time my life is done, I will be totally at peace.

Since life and living involves fights and struggles, peace can only be made when we have overcome or moved past certain struggles. The only peace we can find is just being far enough away from ongoing  struggles.  Sometimes we can create physical distance from fights and struggles. Sometimes we can only have mental distance.  But conflicts will always exist in and around us.

Therefore to be perfectly at peace means to be infinitely removed, physical and mentally, from struggles. Neither is there peace in death. Peace is a state of mind. The dead have no mind and therefore experience neither conflicts or peace.

Therefore, the best we can hope for is to make as much peace as we can while living, for only then can it be enjoyed and have meaning.

Let’s not be mistaken, peace does not come from passivity. Nor does peace come from submission and servitude. Neither does peace come from winning any individual battle. There are many winners who remain haunted and conflicted.

Peace comes from achieving the things that bring lasting satisfaction. Peace comes more through cooperation than through conflict. Peace comes more from creating things than from fighting for things. Peace comes more from sharing rather than from stealing.

Our quests for peace are often stymied by our powerful but primitive fighting instincts. Those who find peace have learned how to use their intellects and not just their instincts when dealing with others. Smarter individuals and societies become more peaceful. Dumber individuals and societies are always at war. They can’t conceive any other path to success except through war.