World Peace Demystified

        The term “world peace” has been batted around for decades by well-meaning and hard-working but often clueless dreamers living in a society whose leaders seem to aspire to the opposite. We’re all clueless dreamers of one degree or another, but there is something vague about the words “world peace” that brings out the head-scratching in all of us. Because there are so many different views about world peace, it’s hard to define. Some think of it as merely a laying down of arms while others picture a beatific existence straight out of a Maxfield Parrish painting. And then there is everything else in between those extremes and other concepts outside the “box” altogether.
      The important thing is that we all want world peace, whatever it is, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus as to its definition. Why is it important to define it? How can you work toward something you can’t define? Or at least picture?
      Whether “world peace” will ever share a common definition, one thing is clear—it is not something that is definitive enough to work towards. World peace is, in fact, a byproduct of “unity.” Now there’s a concept we can hang our hats on. Unity suggests the use of awareness, acquiescence, sacrificing for the greater good, cooperation, and many other virtues its condition requires. World peace is really the fruits of unity’s labor.
      Now that we have something more tangible to work towards, how do we attain global unity? We’ve never done that before. Many naysayers point to this fact ignoring every historical moment in the past where we had previously never done something that we finally learned how to do. And there are a lot of them. But creating global unity is a daunting task—maybe the biggest one yet. But is it something to be cynical about, or afraid of?
      Let’s say Adam and Eve were the first humans (which we know they weren’t according to the Bible…and to common sense) and they had an intimate encounter between them…okay, wild and crazy jungle love. If Eve had never seen or heard of another pregnant woman, she might wonder why her belly started to grow. During month nine of her gestation, she might say to her female cave friend, “Something’s in my belly. It’s moving. It’s alive! An alien is taking me over! What did Adam do to me, that prick! (Insert Lorena Bobbit joke here).
      We all know that women know what to expect in the process of giving birth. They know that the outcome is new life and they’re willing to suffer and occasionally die for it. Giving birth to a united world is no different. It’s painful, messy, and a lot of people have died and will die for it, but that’s life. The problem is that many people don’t see the inevitable outcome of the social/ecological havoc that we are wreaking across the earth and its peoples. They somehow think that we are all going to be destroyed or taken over by an evil despot or oligarchy. I think they are playing to many video games or watching American news programs.
      A despot or two or ten cannot stop the force of evolution. Let’s say there is a World War III. The chance of all human life being annihilated is slim. We’re too spread out and too adaptable. Those left will certainly have learned a valuable lesson about the lack of unity and, hence, unity. Those that have died will be at peace, so everyone wins. On the other hand, let’s say a select few try to rule the world. Isn’t that what’s happening now? Don’t we see the elite and powerful teetering on their soapboxes, losing credibility, facing the wrath of the public they try to control? How long do they think they can get away with what they’ve gotten away with so far?
      History offers us hope when cynicism and rationalization fails. Evolution, as we have found out, always progresses. It may take a detour or a step back now and then but it always moves forward toward a higher level of unity. After the caveman came the tribes, then the villages, then towns, cities, states, nations, and tomorrow…THE WORLD!
      One critical question we haven’t asked until now is, “Why don’t we have unity now?” The answer is that we haven’t decided if that’s what we want. Some people either don’t think it’s possible, don’t want it, are too lazy, or just don’t care. Our culture certainly has a lot of distractions hindering our ability to focus on important issues. But in fact, if we want it, and reach a critical mass, we can get it sooner than if we wait for nature to impose it on us.
      This leads us to our first step in achieving world unity. It may be obvious—since I just mentioned it—but it is the most critical step and, fortunately, the easiest: you have to want it. It costs no money nor does it take any effort to want it. It only takes awareness of our higher potential as human beings and our desire to live up towards that potential.
      I’m a firm believer in step-by-step directions. If I had a nickel for every tech support specialist that told me to zap my registry file, defrag my pee-ram, and reconfigure my cache without telling me HOW to do it, I could take that money and replace my whole computer…and the mouse!
      So we now have our first step—to desire world unity—which leads us to our second step: do something about it. See how easy this is becoming? We already have two steps toward creating world unity on the planet! So what do we do about it, you ask? Ah, well there’s the rub. That’s a subject for another essay… or book. I can see the title now! Demystifying World Unity.
     
 Matthew Levine    

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