top ten ways to find inner peace
PEACE (n): 1) To stand serenely in the face of explosions that happen that you don't want to happen; 2) To stand serenely in the face of explosions that do not happen that you want to happen; 3) The condition of no less than 73% consciousness, as opposed to 73% open-mouthed-breathing; 4) To stand serenely with a beatific grin on your face, looking kind of high, actually. Hands clasped so that fingers form a horny-looking diamond that juts out from your peacefulness, a Bermuda Triangle inviting all others to be pulled into your contented mellow.
Peace. Miss Universe wants it. So does Miss Wichita Home Heating.
Do any of us know what peace is, though? Because the moment they inform Miss Wichita Home Heating that all the machine guns in the world have been plugged up with daisies, all those soldiers standing there will be left to ponder the fundamentally distressed state of individual humanity.
And they will freak the f*ck out.
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On the internet, legions of empowered women lyricize empowerment. Just the same, legions of peace-seekers lyricize gratitude and self-worth.
Every now and then I consider joining in but then imagine what I'd write and it sounds like something a 73 year-old woman would yell off her front porch, punctuated by a PFFFT. The expressions of all those sentiments are heartfelt and have their place, but I've got foundational hesitations about what's assumed.
Like the assumption that gender makes us something — or makes us need something — by default. Or that we should all strive to get to a place called peace, walking faster towards a horizon that dangles on the end of a stick.
Hee-haw.
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Hunger and clumsy wanting and risk and uncertainty and exposure, god, the exposure. It's uncomfortable. Envy. Not the kind that would have you wish any less for the objects of it, but the kind that has you lean in closer as though you might gain nerve by osmosis. Fitful nights and a racing mind. Consumed. Never enough time. Never enough of anything.
It's how you feel when you've got big ideas or when you're strapped or unhealthy or lonely or in need of some formative experience or change or big bloody ZAP. This is a natural state almost more human than the fear of death and the loathing of taxes.
On top it all? I should be more peaceful/present/grateful.
Hee-haw.
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Almost two years to the day after founding it with Bon, I've said goodbye to Glow in the Woods.
A few well-meaning people said how wonderful, you've found your peace or congratulations or I'll never get there as if being perceived to have peace or not have peace is a measure of intensity or pain or sheer will.
To aspire to peace, in my mind, is to aspire to that glossy stuff you put on your hair to make it look shiny and smell delicious. It makes you look shiny. It makes you smell delicious. But it's not a return to some inate core of shiny deliciousness.
We are always stirred. We are varying degrees of knuckle-biting turmoil which is in itself 73% exquisite. Distress serves a purpose. It helps us find the shape of what's important. It amplifies things that go right. It is aspirational. Nothing is ever enough.
Nod to the hungry animal of you.
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1. Quit trying to find inner peace.
2. Quit trying to try to not find inner peace.
3. Remember that the concept of inner peace is a racket designed to sell self-help books, Dove soap, organized religion, and rescue remedy.
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Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Reader Comments (34)
How the hell do you do that?
If someone on the end of a whoooole lot of reverence could instantly be PEACED (yeah, I'm making words up), you'd be peaced. Unfortunately, I don't think it's that easy. But, the reverence is there, nonetheless. It's always there.
In response:
1. Okay. Deep breaths.
2. ...Alright. I won't find it. It will... er...might.. find me.
3. Self help is pish posh; the fumble in the dark is the most important part. I'm using a Dove conditioner that makes my hair prematurely oily. Don't get me started on how incredible uncomfortable I've been in places of organised religion.
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You're excellent.
Oh, and there's a piece of mail IN the mail that has Evan's name all over it. Literally.
and Catherine: I should confess too that I've used 'peace' before. Never referring to it as a place to get to, or the light at the end of a linear tunnel, but as a sentiment that translates to "I hope you get a good sleep tonight". Because in grief, it's that rare, decent sleep, I think, that makes us able to walk through the day without falling apart. And that's something.
I wish you ease.
Love to you, and I hope your turmoil and distress aren't too distressing from here on out.
you spread your own kind of something, Kate. You words can be like a balm win just a little sting and have met a need that I had today. And after reading this I find my thumping heart has settled a little lower in my throat and I can move a little easier towards an action I have dreaded taking. That feels better than finding this elusive peace others speak of.
I read your post at glow and thought it beautiful in it's own way too.
Kate, I've already said this at Glow, but I shall say it again: thank you. x
....but I'm not sure that peace....is ever as important as time. It doesn't heal, it doesn't explain but it softens the sharp edges. And I think that erosion inexplicably takes longer for some than others.
I'm a newish reader (hilarious, the bit about Dove soap) but I have some sort of a mental block where I keep thinking you are from Vancouver as opposed to the other side of the country. Messing with my head, I tell you.
And you know what I've learned?
That anxiety is only that - anxiety. Once it comes in, it spreads through me and slowly dissipates. It's not that I don't care any more, or that it doesn't hurt any more, but I understand that it is survivable, and with that discovery comes an unexpressable relief...
Lindsay, you're not far off. If you go back and read from the beginning, you'll understand why you think Kate is from Vancouver.
Kate, words are failing me. You're brilliant. And when I listen to your voice in the videos and interviews, I can hear your brilliance.
http://thecottonsocks.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-wish-you-peace.html
They all sound so damn lofty and smug. They’re dripping with RELIGION and they make me squirm. And yet… there are things I do and feel that seem to have no other words. These ones are too clean, too sterile for what it feels like to me, but they’re what we’ve got. I’m an agnostic chanting Idon’tknowIdon’tknowIdon’tknow to the stars. I don’t have any answers, and I don’t trust anyone who thinks they do.
Maybe peace is nodding to the hungry animals who are us, and finally getting our inner hecklers to shut the hell up. Just for a nanosecond.
Or maybe it's having delicious smelling hair, what do I know? ; )
Makes me rethink my own use of the word peace.
Over at Glow I was struck by the thought that Kate is leaving, but she's not saying she's graduating, she has not moved on in the sense that she woke up one day and POOF everything was wonderful. You let us know that it's okay to not ever really graduate, that moving on is done in degrees and steps forward and back and sometimes it has a public forum, and sometimes it's private. Thank you.
A million thank yous.
Thank you.
http://www.schmutzie.com/fivestarfriday/2010/4/26/five-star-fridays-edition-100-thats-like-a-lot-of-five-star.html
Inner Peace, to me, is acceptance. I find that I am never more calm and serene as to when I've acknowledged that I can not conquer the machine that lives in another.
After reading your post, I'm rethinking all the 'peace' wishes I hand out willy-nilly. Thanks for your excellent words.
And that's just how I feel on days when I am at "peace". I think for us it's a whole different ball of wax, words and paradigms shift into new meaning. Being at peace for me doesn't mean what it might to some, it means being able to drive to the grocery store on some days not bawling my eyes out. I said "some" days, I don't even expect it to stop altogether. Ahhh, peace.