When Do you Feel Most at Peace

This is perhaps the most existential question anyone can ask of a human being. What is peace, really, in a world that seems to conspire against it at every turn?

Do I find peace by turning off the TV, considering that world events are anything but peaceful? Do I stop shopping because prices are outrageous, and the simple act of buying groceries has become an exercise in economic anxiety? What does peace even look like in 2025? Is it fellowship, gathering with others who share our burdens?

Or is it isolation, retreating into solitude where the chaos can’t reach us? Is peace found in charity, in giving ourselves away to causes larger than our individual suffering? Or is it in hoarding, protecting what little security we can grasp in uncertain times?

These questions circle in my mind because peace has become something I must actively construct, rather than simply stumble upon.

I find my deepest peace in the space between memory and creation. When I’m writing, the stories of my ancestors flow through me onto the page. In those moments, time becomes elastic. The outside world, with all its noise and demands, fades to background static. There’s just me, the words, and the voices of those who came before, speaking through me to those who will come after.

It’s the peace of purpose fulfilled, of being exactly who I was meant to be before the world started adding its requirements. When I’m crafting a scene set in Jamaica, channeling the rhythm of Caribbean speech, weaving magical realism into everyday moments, I’m not fighting against anything; I’m flowing with something ancient and eternal.

But peace, I’ve learned, isn’t a permanent state. It’s not something you achieve once and keep forever. It’s something you create, moment by moment, choice by choice. Sometimes it’s as simple as turning off the TV. Sometimes it’s closing the laptop and sitting with my thoughts. Sometimes it’s calling family and letting their voices remind me of what matters most.

Peace, for me, is remembering that beneath all the roles I’ve had to play, all the responsibilities I’ve had to shoulder, there’s still that child who believed stories could heal the world. She’s still there, still believing, still creating peace through the simple act of giving voice to the voiceless.

Maybe that’s what peace really is: not the absence of chaos, but the presence of purpose strong enough to anchor us in the storm.