Photo of art previously posted here was of Peace and Love,, acrylic, chalk, Posca ink, mixed media, 2021 by artist Art Sand, diminutive of the name Sandrine.
Happy New Year! January 1 is the World Day of Peace. It seems that every day, I think of, long for, wonder about peace.
It’s commonly said that we’ve never had peace on this planet and never will have. To be informed is to be confronted with constant reminders of violence, unspeakable horrors, and unimaginable cruelty. Though we can find other stories about or personally know people who make positive differences, those often seem insignificant in the face of suffering on what seems like a limitless scale. It can all be overwhelming and numbing.
What do we do? How do we make peace? Keep peace? Encourage peace? Quick, easy answers frequently come from sources whose own lives and time are anything but peaceful. Often their motives are far afield of peace, maybe summarized in words like greed and power; control and manipulation; “winning,” whatever the cost.
I wish I had the infinite answers tailored to all of our unique challenges. I don’t even have the answers for all of my own. I would posit that keeping and making peace in our lives requires mindfulness. Attention. Awareness. Honesty with ourselves. Mental, emotional, and physical effort. To identify where things go off the rails and examine how our habits, personalities, and ego may contribute to robbing our days, homes, families, friends, jobs, and hobbies of peace. What things can we control, modify, or change? What things should we walk away from?
A few things I think about in my own life: When do I need to say no? To not think I must provide an answer to every question? To make more room for stillness and less room for busy-ness and distractions? To mind my own business more and other people’s less? To watch for a subtle shift from coping mechanisms like humor and storytelling to more harmful actions (e.g., belittling, criticizing, judging, mocking)? To recognize when people are directing those things at me (or even to the world at large) and to find the healthiest reactions and choices for my inner and outer peace.
Such a simple yet complex word: Peace.
I was so looking forward to an electric Volkswagon campervan, but it seems that would be only in Europe. The U.S. is destined to a three row seater electric van and those seats can’t be removed. Why are American cars and tires getting so much bigger? The smaller harder tires are usually more gas efficient ar least, as is also smaller lighter vehicles that ride them. The electric cars should have taken over, but at least a charging socket and plug have finally become
standardized to the Tesla kind. I just wish their commander in chief was actually a better person and their factories a better, safer, kinder place to be. So, greed and willed blindness/deadness are definitely part of the anti-peace problem. Then, there’s the never ending plastic.
Definitely yes on those last few sentences! I doubt we’ll ever go for an electric vehicle; the hybrids seem more our style.
Unfortunately, this morning, I read an article reviewing the ridiculous size of the Ford Lightning. It’s not often still to this day, but I do come across vehicles bigger than my college ’72 Dodge Polara!! I often find them
in the compact car spaces in the LAX parking spot garage, and even during my boxy Scion xB days, I couldn’t get my compact into what was left of those spaces! Did Ford think/gamble that an impractical huge truck would kickstart the electric? Incidentally, the floor to the duct level celing in my apartment is about 2 meters. The same in that region in the apartment upstairs. That means that if I places that very nearly $100,000 truck perpendicular on it’s front bumper, the other end would pass the roof of the upstairs. Why? They’re hardly used as truck haulers even when they burn fossil fuels!
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/01/a-week-with-a-ford-f-150-lightning-this-truck-is-too-big-for-city-life/
That truck is huge. They probably sell a lot of them in Texas.