Ya ever wonder how two words end up sounding alike yet have nothing to do with one another? I mean, a piece is a part of a whole, a unit unto itself. It is a “something” that together with some more somethings makes another thing.
Yet it also means having sex with someone “a piece” or giving some of your thoughts to another as in “piece of my mind”, which is not literal as in a piece of pie would be, but rather an idea conveyed, which still remains with the thinker. I can also demand a “piece of the action” claiming that for some reasons I’m entitled so share in certain activities or profits.
Confusing?
How does a word get to mean so many diverse things?
Now peace means no war. It means tranquility and freedom from turmoil. It relates to countries, groups within a country, families, or even the individual. Wherever there is upheaval one desires cessation. Calmness is desired.
I am not sure why we crave peace, but we certainly do. We say we do all the time, while we of course war. We say our aim in war is peace, but we curiously think that comes at the end of a gun rather than at the end of a string of sentences.
To want a piece of peace is to lay claim to some place physical or otherwise where we impose peace. Our island in the midst of chaos. It’s often our home, our castle as we construe it.
While it seems for there to be peace there must be all peace, we insist that if we can’t get real peace, we will settle for this semblance of it. We will have a cabin in the woods. We will meditate into our piece of peace.
It will be contained within our minds. No matter what you say or do in front of me, I won’t give it up. This piece of peace I have established. I’ll fight pretty hard to maintain its perimeter. But somehow that is not violence, since I’m preserving my peace.
People say, I won’t talk to you about politics or religion; it will disturb my peace. There are rules to peace so it seems.
I will sit and watch all around me go to hell, but it will not disturb my peace. That is something isn’t it?
I’ve got my peace, screw you buddy.
I’ll not only take no responsibility for this fine mess, I won’t lift a finger to fix it, cuz it ain’t my mess.
They gotta meme for that.
Catchy huh?
Yeah, I know.
Climb into your blanket fort and pretend it ain’t yours.
Peace at any price?
Now that will start a row.
Neville Chamberlain is reputed to have desired peace so much that any peace would do. Not yours or theirs, but England’s was enough.
That didn’t work, because Hitler wanted to his fantasy at any price.
It is your mess.
You can’t avoid it.
You can only look the other way.
So that means peace can be really fake.
It can be a pretence for peace, one imposed on an ungrateful world which refuses to go away, or at least just keep it’s horrors to itself.
I wanna get a hold of some peace, but my heart keeps looking around and seeing injustice, and I can’t get my piece of peace until I can wipe those images from my brain.
And I can’t do that, until I change the world.
Imagine that.
Talk politics and talk religion and stand forth against the raging tide of ennui and lies and speak truth to whom ever is standing in front of me. Imagine that.
If they gave a war and nobody came would there be war any more?
If we don’t care enough to learn how to tell a liar from a saint are we seeking peace, or only a piece?
It’s Earth Day.
The earth would like some peace. It needs a lot of pieces of peace these days.
Whales need a lot of peace. Not only are their seas and oceans being polluted, but they are still incarcerated and forced to perform for humans.
Women need a lot of peace. In a lot of places for a lot of things.
The list would be long. All the shit that needs some peace.
God probably needs peace too. I bet She never figured that this particular human sentience would be such a pain in the ass. We write books and then claim that God wrote them, and then we tell each other what they mean, and we all disagree, and we call each interpretation “being the real church”.
We all need peace from politics, so we say. As I said, some say they won’t talk to people who mention that stuff. I guess that’s why we got a House and Senate full of morons and when you travel around the states and cities, you find even more of them.
They say, that to achieve peace, you have to be peace. I guess that might be true. You are becoming a piece of peace, and when there are enough pieces, that makes a whole peace.
But it’s not enough to be peace. It’s not like seeping into the fabric of evil and suddenly it’s not evil any more.
You gotta actually speak up and speak out and call it what it is. Name it.
When it ain’t fair, you gotta spit out that it’s unfair, and how it can be fair. That’s transforming. Because it’s all too clear a whole lot of folks have no clue what is fair.
So are you gonna do peace today?
Are you gonna take your piece and go out and explain truth to the world?
Or are you gonna stay in the blanket fort, and pretend you got it all by yourself?
Brought to you by SoCs
Existential Ennui 