Most of my life has been a pursuit of peace. Even though I’ve had to literally fight to achieve it at times.
A colleague and I were discussing martial arts, after I presented a workshop for his leadership team on constructive conflict resolution using the principles of yin and yang. He looked at me thoughtfully and asked, “You’re a pacifist, aren’t you Stan?” I said, “Yes. But unfortunately, not everyone else is.”
I’ve often wondered why people do each other so much intentional harm. I know the usual answers. One need only look at non-human animal behavior to see that inter-species and intra-species mayhem is built into the fabric of life on this world. Why would people be any different? From the larger perspective, the one that considers all life connected and related, it seems a part of the plan that life continually evolves to find the form which has the best chance of making it further into the future. Life-threatening conditions cause changes in lineage, searching for the more durable, the more likely to survive.
When a particular form of life has fewer and fewer external threats, just as resources to support the existing population begin to be exhausted, the population will war with itself. Added to this internal weeding are the other three horsemen of the Apocalypse–disease, natural disasters and famine. Population correction on a global scale.
The tragedy in this process is that humans have the ability to solve for the conditions that are causing the four horsemen to ride. We throw away 40% of our food in the richest economies. We know how to reduce our environmental impacts and slow or reverse climate change that threatens us and our children. We have the technologies to globally improve healthcare, and the advances are coming faster. With a broader perspective, national leaders could choose to cooperate with each other and bring in an era of unprecedented human development.
But instead, Russia decides to invade Ukraine. Thousands are dying. Millions are uprooted. Syria’s government wages war on its own citizens. Two people get into a gunfight at a town picnic in Arkansas, sending a couple dozen people to the hospital, and one to their grave. A car drives into a crowd in Belgium. Americans scream curses at each other in the name of their particular definition of patriotism.
There’s another side to the story, however. It doesn’t get near as much air time. It is just as real as the four horsemen. There is a countervailing force, which can quench destructive dynamics. It’s the same force that causes life to exist in the first place. Call it a “life force”, if you want, because it unquestionably exists, and it is the only force that is equal to the disintegrating forces of apocalypse.
You can see the life force when you travel through a burned forest a few years after the blazes. Green shoots everywhere. You can feel it when a loved one places their hand on your fevered forehead, the headache lessening at the instant of their touch. And you can see it on a dance floor filled with tangueros.
Cheri introduced me to Tango twenty years ago. We have been enthralled with the journey ever since. Everywhere we travel, we find local venues where Tango exists. We’ve danced in Rome, New York, Juneau, Marseilles, Buenos Aires (of course), Paris, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Sydney, Lisbon and many other cities. San Diego, our home, is a particularly vibrant Tango community.
When we attend any milonga in San Diego, we find people from literally everywhere–Canada, Mexico, China, Belarus, Philippines, Japan, Viet Nam, England, France, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Croatia, Ukraine, Italy–everywhere. People from all over the United States. People of all ages. The dance floor is filled with people holding each other carefully and with deep respect, moving in improvisational synchronicity to beautiful music that inspires the soul. Strangers become instant friends at the first embrace.
This is the life force in action. Tango gives me hope that the fundamental goodness permeating all living things is fully equal to the destructive forces threatening us all. We have a choice as to which path to follow, in each challenge of our daily lives.
This morning, as I drove to an appointment, the traffic light turned green but the driver in front of me didn’t move. I didn’t want to be late. A common occurrence for me, and for most of us. But this time I chose to imagine the person in the car ahead of me was looking at a text informing her of how her sister was doing in the hospital. I imagined that I had just danced a tanda with her yesterday. When you’ve held someone close, in the embrace of the spirit of life, peace is the result.