I spent the first half of my life aggressively pursuing peace
In myself (Meditate more! Read more books! Find the Magic Formula!)
In my family (See how smart I am and do what I say and we’ll be fine!)
And in the world (Protest! Lobby! Canvass! Convince! Enroll! Recycle!)
Yet those heartfelt efforts did not generate the experience of peace
They kept an idea of peace just out of reach
And dependent upon herding colonies of wildly disinterested cats
Eventually, all that well-intentioned aggression fried my nervous system
A nervous system, like so many others, tuned to chronic urgency
The floor was always lava
It was not a game
My individual reorientation came through illness
My sister’s came through grief
The list of specific mechanisms is endless
But the dynamic at play was:
All these ideas you have about what’s right and wrong
Maybe take a breath
And learn to listen instead of dictate
To participate instead of compulsively organize
Align instead of direct
For a person who thought her devotion necessarily had to pay dividends in the world
It’s a radical reorganization of identity and purpose
It’s also extremely relieving
I’m not sure if hamsters think the wheel will get them out of the cage
But it doesn’t, no matter how hard they try
The wheel appeals to their natural desire to run in their environment
But it doesn’t fulfill it
Instinct redirected to futility
It also has an antidote
An intentional design that harnesses the instinct
Because while sometimes little rodents are desperate to find food or escape predators
Even well-nourished hamsters in the wild continue to run and forage
As a participatory act in the ecology
But those are two very different points of origin
One is panicked, the other is more relaxed.
Both are active
One is generative
Like if the hamster wheel powered an Easy Bake Oven of hamster treats
All my strain didn’t yield peace
But my growing peace continues to dissolve strain
It doesn’t make me passive
But it surely makes me less anxious
And more than even my best organizing
Meeting hard things softly
Invites a generosity of care
That lets peace grow
