What is Peace? A Brief Exploration
Peace is a word that carries so many meanings, yet its essence often feels elusive. Politically, it is often framed as the absence of war – a fragile state negotiated through treaties and maintained by power balances. But is that all peace truly is? What if peace is not something external but something deeply internal? What if it begins within us, as individuals, before it ever reaches the world? Perhaps peace is like a fire that starts small, gradually spreading, or like a never-ending river, flowing into the streets and touching everyone it encounters.
True peace cannot come without inner peace. Only when we are at ease with ourselves can we resist the endless drive to become more, to have more, to grasp at power or territory that we do not deserve. Inner peace allows us to simply be, rather than fight to become something else, no matter the cost. It is strange how often peace is pursued through violence: wars fought in the name of liberation, independence, or freedom, resulting in destruction, trauma, and loss. Rifles, bombings, and battles are called peacebuilding. Terrorism, territorial disputes, and arguments are branded as steps toward peace. But can such means ever truly lead to peace? I do not believe so. Peace does not emerge from violence. It begins in the heart, with the realization that we are enough as we are, that we do not need to endlessly strive or fight to find meaning.
Peace is not a dualistic concept. It has no true enemy but the human mind itself. The mind, plagued by fears of inadequacy and the need for survival, often tells us we are not enough. It drives us to greed, to grasp at things we believe will make us whole. Yet, this very greed is a source of conflict and unrest. Peace can only exist when we quiet that voice, when we learn to accept and even cherish our place in the world as it is. This is where peace begins: not with external conditions but with internal transformation.
The architecture of peace begins with the human body, which I see as the first and most intimate structure we encounter. Our bodies house our souls, and this inner architecture shapes everything else. From there, we expand outward: from the rooms we inhabit to the homes we build, from the cities we create to the global networks that connect everything.
The world is our mirror. It reflects this tension from the soul through to the space. It makes visible the state of the individual that makes up the collective; this unrest within the soul, this striving to be more, to have more, this constant comparison, this losing of one’s own values. Flexibility, openness, multi-purpose but no true purpose. Loss of a sense of belonging and identity. The ambiguity of our spaces mirrors the ambiguity within ourselves. Space and souls alike – unspecific, undefined. We need to bring peace to our souls, in order to bring peace to the world.
