new year hopes and pondering

Thanks for the new background.  The candle for me symbolizes "peace".   I have an ever present hope for it that's mingled with a suspicious fear that what I should expect is less than the "whole thing".   Patch-work seems more the way things are.  And then I think, it is not quite so fine for me to have "my own peace".  To want it for others in other situations where it is much more lacking is a very demanding task.

To live without fear?   That might be a kind of peace or the beginning of "peace".

There is fear of violence which is a bit of how I relate to what you wrote above.  Granted the violence can be politically motivated....although zeroing in on anyone's motivation is notoriously hard to do.  Whereas I might feel some political zeal—suggesting or deliberately prompting violence that causes fear— is okay?  The person next to me might be spurred not so much by ideology or politics but some something deeper, darker and more personal (one can always examine Shakespear's Iago for the personal construction and implementation of "evil").  

The latter configuration of fear can at times be contrasted or dialectically related to a person's lack of exposure to, or cultivation of (not sure what the right phrase is) a common sense of humanity.   Such that a culture of fear can be contrasted to a culture of humanity:

"....while we live, while we are among human beings, let us cultivate our humanity."  Seneca, On Anger  

Now when Seneca wrote this the world, then coming into closer communications between cultures and peoples, was in a similar state of considering cultural diversity as related to some sense of "humanity".  So I think it's wrong to view Seneca (as some would all of the western classical writers) as having lived in a more homogeneous culture and world.  Surely there are differences between then and now, but, also similarities.

But one needn't predicate criteria for "cultivating humanity".   More modestly, one could aspire to world without violence.  Which could be in some sense, the cultivation of human relationships and experiences without violence.   This would then cultivate away from one of the major factors that contributes to "fear".

What kinds of relationships transacted and experienced (and described) would lead to the cultivation of non-violence?   And how would these contrast with the transacted and experienced (and described) culture of fear?

In these kinds of thoughts my default position is one articulated by the American philosopher John Dewey who once wrote:

"Peace in action, not after, is the contribution of the ideal to conduct."    

So in a sense, I think this implicates where I started this posting....in a sense of how the "ideal of peace" becomes part of the culture of "peace" which is perhaps related to learning to live without fear?   Dewey suggests that peaceable actions are the "contribution".   They are guided by a sense of "ideal peace" but without suggesting that the ideal, conceptual form of peace is attainable.   But, as I've tried to indicate above, a better grasp of our transacted experiences (described) might give us a better sense of the actions that cultivate peace and by doing that combat violence and fear.    But often I think, our lack of these sensibilities obscures our own capacity to see how we create violence and fear in our ordinary, everyday transactions.

What hope is there for understanding the larger experiences we might associate with "leading others" if we cannot sense, interpret and understand our own actions (plain and simple)?