Times of turmoil

We are certainly in a time frame of great unease. As we look around for leadership, there is no better place than in the mirror. No one wanted a pandemic, no one wants to restrict the life we had known three years ago. However, in times of turmoil, strong measures must be taken to ensure the safety of all – not just the few.

To stand up for freedom and choice, you have to make sacrifices. You have to act with respect, responsibility, care and in all reality you must act selflessly. Those who stand, work and pay the price to ensure that peace is maintained are worthy of paise due to their sacrifices. However, we should never glorify war because it is nothing to be glorified.

Knowing the cost of peace is to understand the need to do what needs to be done, even when that means doing what will cost your life. Defending freedoms is not defending choice, it is defending the safety of others. We have vaccines, they have proven to work. That is why we are living to one hundred years on a consistent basis now.

Being pissed off about wearing a facemask, getting a vaccine, lockdowns and bubbles is understandable, everyone is. You want to protest to fight for freedom, protest about those who work in human trafficking, protest those who sell drugs to your children, protest those who organize crime, protest those who walk in the shadows to steal, protest those who sneer, mock and walk past the down trodden, protest those who only look out for themselves while their neighbour is crying out for help.

Protesting the vaccine, wearing a mask and other pandemic realities is only making the world take one more step towards complete chaos and war. We need to understand the implications of the pandemic, we need to work to ensure peace is the goal, we need to work to patient and caring with each other. The pandemic will end, The fight for peace will not and those that work to destroy our peace will still, sell drugs, sell our children, steal from us, cause harm in every manner possible to gain for themselves. We have a world worth every effort we can muster. All we need is to have the proper focus. Peace needs everyone to work or we will have none. At this point, we can go either way. Please be patient, please be careful with each other, please put your efforts to ward off what is truly the threat of freedom – the pandemic and those who operate criminally.

View of Peace

 

For those fortunate enough to see Earth from space, many of them speak about a moment of clarity. That clarity is also a complexity of being alone, we only have one home yet, we are all in this together and so much is lost in the struggles we make. The quotes, observations and thoughts that are inspired by seeing the Earth floating in space can grab the essence of peace. Each of us are ultimately alone, living with others, struggling to find our way and hoping for a better future.

I used the word our because it represents both me and us. As I go about this research, there can be no areas that is not a source of interest. To me, the duality of me and us, alone yet together; these factors are integral to every piece of information and thought I encounter. For example:

How a person views themselves is impacted by where they live, the language they speak, the colour of their skin, the way they spell words, the clothes they wear, their health, their job, their hobbies, their families, their chosen spirituality, even the time period they live in will impact who a person is. Then each of us will have to be aware of how others perceive us. Then there is the reality of the person that we want to be and the person we are.

Searching for Peace

 

Searching/studying peace, the focus of my interest rests in the interplay of the individual with society. Questions such as how personal peace relates to societal peace and the impact of society on the individual.

To do this I am looking at situations that individuals who have/are gone through war and those who have and are transitioning from jail back into society. From there I will seek to understand the societal experience with the struggle to transition through violent and unpeaceful moments towards peace.

 

A sample of questions that arise from that focus are:

What do each describe peace to be?

What are the barriers to achieving that peace?

What strategies do each use in that pursuit?

How do each see their impact on society as being?

How do each see the impact society has on them?

 

In the answers I am thinking there will be a universe of elements that factor in the equation to build/destroy peace. Racism, culture, religion, environment, education, economics, where a person lives, job/career and gender are some examples off the top of my head.

 

From there I am wondering how to collect data.

I will have to seek out those who are currently experiencing the situations described. I will ask similar questions as stated above. These questions can be in person or in a written format.  I can also develop a rating scheme for each such as a 0 to 10 scale. For example, on a scale of 0 to 10, zero being negative and 10 being positive. I can also ask on a similar scale how much effort each are putting into their goal of peace with 0 being no effort and 10 being every thought and effort possible. If I were to give an example of such efforts, I would have to get participants to pick who they see as those being on that scale (either real or fictional) just to get a “sense” of the markers.

To gather the societal information, I can send out through mass media similar questionnaires as well as gathering data from reports on global indexes such as the Human Development Index.

 

Why am I looking at these two (war and jail) realities as opposed to cancer patients or just the average person who is also struggling with peace? I have chosen these two for personal reasons. I have lived both and struggle to ensure my own path stays peaceful. I am striving to understand the mental paths that help others remain on the path to peace and what pulls a person towards the reality of destroying peace. However, I do believe/hope that what I will discover will relate to anyone who is struggling with building peace.

At this very moment I am wondering if a case study is also a method I should pursue?

 

I am searching for peace within my own mind as well as for society. I can not do this alone so I made it my research.