Life just is. It doesn’t need to be anything else. It doesn’t have to be a crusade or an apology. It doesn’t need a purpose. It isn’t an achievement or a goal. It doesn’t have to be a coherent linear progression, centered around one concept to which all others owe their existence, slave to predictability. I now perceive that part of me unconcerned with the definition of reality. The part that listens. The part that will never know what time it is.

This is peace. This knowledge. Peace is not a political concept. It is not something to be negotiated between powers or bargained for like an expensive property. It is the moment you see yourself with clarity and can continue. The moment you accept existence with feeling. Peace is already here, now, and we have only to remove the fear we use to obscure it.

Our lives are not meant to be lived as leaders and followers. We don’t have to discover the One Way and then teach it to everyone else. Our One Way is already defined for us.

We learn to burp very early. Really on day one. We also learn to drink and go to the bathroom. Sometime even earlier, in utero, we learn to sleep and wake. And dream. We learn how to do these things years before we learn how to talk, compare prices, sit at a desk, bow to the king, and blow up other countries. We learn them the same way all creatures with four limbs and a head do. The difference is by the time we’re adults most of us have chosen to push these things into the background of our lives, fitting them in between activities we’ve been taught are more valuable, depriving ourselves of them for as long as our bodies will tolerate. The things in which the entire human race are undeniably united have been demoted in the face of General Rule. We won’t let people use the bathroom unless they’re buying something. We won’t feed starving people unless they listen to our sermon. We get embarrassed if we laugh too loud or cry in front of strangers. If we dream, we’re not paying attention. Sit up straight! Go to work! Pray to God! Fight for something!

I just can’t seem to do it anymore. When I look at the Enemy I see him eating breakfast. I see him looking at the stars. I see him finally deciding to hell with it and taking a nap in the afternoon. I see him holding his head in his hands, crying over the blood and the cruelty and the indifference. And when he raises his head, wipes his eyes and looks at me, I hope he sees the same thing.

Life just is. It is and it is and it is. We can accept and float between the joy and the pain, the known and the unknown. We know how. We learned to laugh and cry. We learned to dream. We know the way peace feels from long ago before we even saw the world. Remember?