Different Possibilities

Prologue

"Never regard study as a duty but as an enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later works belong." — Albert Einstein

Is a peaceful life truly possible?

On our own personal journey, we all seek understanding, meaning, wisdom and knowledge. We want to know why we're here. We crave purpose. For many of us, we navigate life trying to make sense of who we are by distributing our time across things like obligations, work, family, and our passions. We're trying to find ourselves.

As we mature, we try and find a way to make the schematics of time work in our favor, so we can provide the type of life — for ourselves and our loved ones — that mirrors the vision of our dreams. If we're going to act on something, we want to know why we should and, we hope to gauge the intended outcomes of that result.

Are we acting in our own self-interest? Are we doing things for others? Self-improving minds perpetually search for answers to the questions of why we do, what we do, as well as who we do it for. The greater understanding, we have for the "Why" and the "What", the more likely we are to find peace and balance in our lives.

Let me illustrate with a metaphor. Take the ocean. On the top, we see the ripples and the waves. As we swim here or travel on a boat, we go up and down, now cresting a wave, now sliding down to the trough. The surface changes with the changing weather - gentle ripples in fine weather and turbulent seas in rough. Now dive deeper into the ocean, and it quietens down. It's more silent, but we still feel the under currents. We see all the flora and fauna of the sea which swim and float beneath the surface, and we understand to an extent the nature of the seas in that region and the causes for its color and character. Now go further deeper to the ocean floor. It's a deep and quiet place, where we are just voyeurs, of a brilliant and primeval world. We feel like we are in a timeless space, just a small but complete and indivisible part of creation. The ocean floor is the base of the entire earth and all life on it. It was there in the beginning; it'll be there in the end and we are a part of it.

This ocean represents life. On the top are ripples and waves which reflect our outward existence with its constant interaction with our environment - with its ups and downs. There is happiness and joy, and pain and grief and all that lie in between both. But not much peace. Deeper in our consciousness lies our moments of thinking and introspection and reflection. Much deeper we reach the base of our consciousness, the primeval sense of living and being. Just that, and nothing else. With no conditions attached. With no relationships or attachments. With no cost or price. In our own personal solitude. It is in this layer that lies peace - ever-lasting peace.

I may never find that layer, that final layer that will separate me from everything. I only seek peace because it's what I don't know. The fairy tale behind peace – does it truly exist? Maybe it depends on the person asking we all have different idea's what we want out of life – for me, I just want a few friends, possibly a lover and to get by without any big problems in the future. I'm hoping that the next 3 years at this school will help me find what I'm looking for "peace." If not, maybe peace truly only lies with the dead.