Why is peacebuilding difficult?

Question from the Internet:

“Why is peacebuilding a difficult task?”

Peacebuilding is difficult because we have to build and sustain peace above and against our inherent nature.

Human history is an incessant chain of recurring conflicts and wars. Our own society is in a constant state of strife and worsening crisis — and also marching ever closer to a world war only 80 years after the last one — because our inherent nature is driving us this way.

We are all born with an inherently self-serving, self-justifying, subjective, and individualistic nature. We all care only about ourselves and the “close circle” built around us and try to accumulate and consume everything we can only for ourselves while protecting ourselves from actual or feared pain and suffering.

And if we can do whatever we want at the expense of others, that gives us double the pleasure.

Most people are honestly unaware of this, as they probably haven’t encountered situations where they faced critical decisions. But behind all of our thoughts, decisions, and actions stands the all-powerful and all-consuming human ego in each and every one of us.

Of course, we are all different. And there are those who are hungrier and more ruthless than others. But deep down, below the different dressings and external features and actions, we are all driven by the same forces, desires, and intentions, and given the “right conditions” and necessities, we can all become ruthless exploiters and destroyers of others.

“True Peace,” a selfless and unconditional, mutually responsible and mutually complementing integration of diverse and seemingly incompatible elements in nature, or people in human society, is against our inherent nature. It is against our egocentric and subjective individuality.

We do not have the software and means to start caring for and serving others as we care for and serve ourselves. This is why in order to build and constantly sustain peace above the raging volcano of the hateful ego — which we cannot suppress or erase — we need a unique, purposeful, and practical method which can give us a “second nature,” a unique “upgrade,” so we could balance and harness the incredible driving forces of the human ego, and channel these forces for the wellbeing and most optimal state of others and the whole system.

Then we will have “True Peace,” or “Shalom” in Hebrew, originating from the expressions of “wholeness,” “complementation,” or “paying for each other, being guarantors for one another.”