"What If....?"

An ex-student of mine, Kurt Montayne, posted the title I'm using here on his Facebook wall. The first to immediately hit me was "What If...'The world lived in peace.'" Naturally, I had to post it as a comment under Kurt's instigation.

Then, I got to thinking about what if we each lived in our own peace. That is where world peace really has to start anyway. It needs to begin with each and everyone of us individually. Then, we'd have something to pass on to others in our little worlds, and it could and would grow from there.

Well, how in the hell do we get ourselves to live in our own peace? What about all that we've done that can't be undone that brought us to where we are today? What about what we are doing now that is going to affect the quality, the peace, of our futures. What about what others have done, are doing and will do to us?

Damn! So may questions! So many variables! So many "What Ifs." Damn!

Well, maybe it is time for us to stop regretting, worrying about and planning for the "What Ifs." Maybe it is time to just accept certain ideas as truths. Perhaps, life is easier than we think and less difficult than we make it.

We are born. We will die. We will go through difficult times. We will make errors. We will do good, and we will do bad. We will experience joys and sorrows, ups and downs, hope and hopelessness, success and failure.

If we ask ourselves how we want to live this very moment, is there anyone of us who would not say, "The best way that I possible can. I want to be happy." If there is, and you're reading this, maybe you should force yourself to read on.

For those of us who would agree that the best, happiness, is our desire, then we can't rationally doubt that the decisions that we make at any given point in time are the best that we can muster up. What we are doing now and what we think are both products of that same desire, to live the best life that we can, given the circumstances of the moment.

We'll see these decisions differently when we look back on them from some point in the future. That's because we will be different people. Hopefully, we will have grown from who and what we are now. We will, therefore, choose to do things differently given a similar set of circumstances, given similar options.

Actually, doing things differently in the future, in similar situations, is the only real way to expiate guilt or regret, if they are, in truth, different.  You see, in order for real change to take place, a person, we, need to go through some catharsis, a modification of self on a deep level of being. That is usually a painful process. That pain is a cleansing. Regardless of what society and the law want to add to it, it is a purification that no jail or cell or prison fine can come close to duplicating.

(Ironically, that is, to my mind, the reason to explore literature in our classrooms. Structure, devices, language all pale in reason when compared to catharsis. If I remember correctly, that's how I approached literature in my classrooms. At least that's what I hope I did. That's another blog subject, however. )

It is when we don't change our behavior that we really deserve punishment from a source outside of ourselves.  Was it Plato who said that "the unexamined life was not worth living"? Maybe it was Proverbs. Regardless, it is that examination that provokes change. It is that change that promotes healing. It is healing that begats peace. For Peace is the product of Healing.

I wish us all Healing that we may live in our own Peace.

Thank you Kurt for your posting. It was "pregnant with meaning."