I get it. If there were no fire, there would be no firefighters. If there were no sickness, there would be no doctors. If everyone knew everything, there would be no teachers. I get it. This is balance. Essentially, dark needed light to both have existential purpose. I must arrive to admit, then, that to have good, we must have bad. How else do we hunger for what is lacking if all were good? What would be our drive if we have arrived? What would be our push if we have come to our destiny? I must embrace such understanding.
For my senior year in high school, I had to complete a utopic world for history. I knew exactly what I would create because to denote the meaning of utopia, an ideal world or set-up, at a young age, going door-to-door to collect newspaper for a drill team I was briefly in, I got a visible glimpse of such example.
It was the time where I had stood in front of a home where my breath was taken away. It wasn’t its size, but exquisite grandeur; sound and harmonious to the eyes. Perhaps the owner of the home had noticed my gaze upon her home because she voluntarily told me that it had once been a church. This explained the encompassing stained glass windows equally placed within each side of the tall walls. From where I stood at the entrance, I could see that downstairs was just open space. Two staircases, each on one side, led to the upstairs, a balcony overlooking from atop. It was sunny that day and all I could do was stand there just a little bit longer than I probably should have just to admire the various colors of light that came seeping through the stained glass windows high above to bedazzle the open floor. Utopia supposedly doesn’t exist because in this world, perfection is nonexistent. However, that home brought me to such a world- an ideal perfection. It led me to believe that such world can exist. To me, utopia is a mindset, not a dream.
Utopic peace should be no different. Peace does not suggest itself without its counterparts of adversity. I must bring myself back to that home when suggesting what peace would look like. I must bring my mind, my heart, my spirit to such a utopic world where, understandably, some troubles and challenges may arise when someone walks in with muddy shoes, or sits on a couch to leave an indentation on the pillows. Still, that utopic home, would promote that peace within the soul once the mud was cleaned out and the pillows were fluffed back to their lush.
Let us for a moment, enter the mindset of utopic peace. What would such peace look like?
Sharing
If you could just feel abundantly blessed in your perspective of whatever you have then you would share whatever little you may have since in your mind you have convinced yourself that there is enough to share; those around would then feel that they too have an abundance and would be drawn to share what little they have because in their mind, they too, because of you, have been convinced that they have more than enough to share. The sharing started with you.
Caring
If you had it in you to just stay in the light, loving it, caressing it, maintaining it, tending to it, you would have that care for the world that could get others to do the same. You would allow others to be freed of their own hesitation because your bloom would cause others to be in delight of the overwhelming feeling one gets from such care for the world. Such caring would spread and all would unite to do the same for one another. The caring started with you.
Loving
If you had it in you to give all of your heart to a point of fearlessness you would do just that because you know that by spreading love you would be empowering those around you to do the same. Your love would be abundantly overflowing, allowing others to take in some and give some away. The cycle of love started with you.
Helping
If you had that ability to help using whatever you had in you to be able to, you would do just that; there would be no hesitation in you because helping another would provide you that sense of servitude needed for those around you to thrive. You would know that no matter how little your help is, the world continues to be in peace because you helped to make it so. The desire to help started with you.
Generating
If you saw that one had abundance and all was good you would want it for all because you could see how much easier life is for that one. Thus, you would want to work toward generating the same abundance for all so that all could flourish under the same light. Generating abundance started with you.
Multiplying
If you saw one beautiful flower, you would want to create more. You would be so in love with how it looks, how it makes everything around it better, how all seems to be in better peace with its existence that you would only want to produce more of it. You would desire to multiply the goodness. The multiplication started with you.
Surrendering
If there was no battle, your body would be at rest, surrendering to the refuge of peace and harmony; you would love the feeling of just letting go. There would be no idleness about your soul and spirit. You would simply feel victorious in every moment where no battle had to be fought. The power to surrender started with you.
Apologizing
If you knew that you, being a work of art, crafted into a masterpiece one moment at a time, you would be understanding of the redos that need happen at times; you would be sorry for any wrong that you have done knowing that this heals those around you by the very word, deescalating any situation by you letting down first. People jumping to apologize first to beat the other, fixing any perceived wrong that has been done started with you.
Admitting
If you were not afraid of judgment or shame, knowing that you are of good will and intent in your light, abstaining darkness, understanding that no one is perfect, but a masterpiece of one’s unique makeup of who they were meant to be to serve their very purpose in life, you would admit to your faults because forgiveness will be anticipated. Admitting one’s truth started with you.
Trusting
If you trusted everyone, there would be no need to protect anything, not even your love ones. You would go about the world without a worry of betrayal or hurt. You would look at someone with kindness and acceptance. You would be freed of judgment or fear. You wouldn’t care if others were still working on their trust. You know that you were the example of simply allowing one TO trust. The trusting started with you.
Believing
Believing is planting that seed and creating strength and certainty from within that with water, good soil, and the right amount of sunshine, something will sprout to eventually bloom flowers or bear fruit. It is seeing something before it arrives to exist. Believing in someone is essentially saying to them, “I see you.” This means, “I see the very you that is to come.” The believing started with you.
Utopic peace is a perfect feeling of contentment and acceptance of what is and what is to come. It is to arrive to that saying, “It is well. It is well with my soul.”
Will we ever get there? I must believe.
Here is the ultimate question:
Do you believe to withhold such power to utopic peace?
Answer: You have to know rhetoric when you see one.
P.S.
(I got an A for that project. I believe that while I was limited to the materials I had to depict exactly what my mind could recall, it was my description of the home that drew my teacher to understand such “perfection” I was trying to convey and my insistence that such world does exist.)
