No, we do not have all the same 24 hours in a day.
Some of us were taught to be at war, and it takes 80-90% of the energy we might spend on other things. We are surrounded by those who will not tolerate or condone our peace, or we were for so long that we have sturdy anti-war practices we do daily. (An anti-war practice is still a war practice, a practice that centers war.)
Taking war practices out of my life has changed it completely in so many ways, but lately it's really landing on the time and energy angle.
I've gone all in on creating community for myself quickly in a new place, and it's meant that I've gotten deep with people whom I later learned have practices of war.
When someone in my life shows me their practice of war by going to war with me, I lose that war as fast as possible and let their victory parade carry them out of my life. I keep ALL that time and energy for myself. That is the real win.
I used to ruminate. Try to repair. Try to fix. Try to win, or tie, or end the war. I used to feel disempowered when others brought war to me, like I had to participate, had to do my anti-war rallies, like I was a victim, and I would lose entire days replaying mean things someone said to me. Writing about it in my journal. Talking to friends about it. I wondered for hours about what I might have said, why they decided to treat me this way or handle the situation like that but there is nothing I might have said, and no action of mine that inspired the war.
War is a PRACTICE. It is not a good idea, it's a habitual reactivity. It is a woefully inefficient way to address anything. It is not a solution, certainly not an intimacy or relationship affirming activity. It is constant destruction and rebuilding by those who never learned to maintain. This is not a condemnation, it is a lament.
I learned to maintain, so I lose every war ASAP and get right back to my gentle tending of my relationships with others who relate in peace, pleasure, and play.
Not Making War
verse 30 of the Tao Te Ching,
Lao Tzu & Ursula LeGuin
A Taoist would not advise a ruler
to use force of arms for conquest.
That tactic backfires.
Where the army marched
grow thorns and thistles
After the war
come the bad harvests.
Good leaders prosper, that's all
not presuming on victory.
They prosper without boasting
or domineering or arrogance
prosper because they can't help it,
prosper without violence.
Things flourish then perish.
Not the Way.
What's not the Way
soon ends.