The following account provides a productive way of thinking about peace.
It sketches the emergence of the inner-peace of a newborn child.
As an addition of peace to the world shared with some 8.2 billion human individuals it is tiny.
There is a limitations in that much practical knowledge is not considered.
Nevertheless, with references from modern neuroscience and neo-natal childcare it identifies a few important factors in the origin and earliest stage of growth of peace.
An observable physical origin of peace
The observable origin of peace witnessed by some half or more of the human population is the emergence of one of its proxies, contentment, in a newly born human being.
Being born entails a rapid and extreme transition from from darkness to light, from connection to disconnection, from a confined uterine space not much bigger than a beach-ball to the relatively limitless space of a delivery room, and from total reliance to total independence in among other vital functions access to oxygen, water and nutrition.
Newborn has been well-equipped by evolution with its range of sensory organs and hormonally controlled systems of response and defence. Newborn's mother has been similarly well equipped by nature, albeit with variations resulting from her environment and nurture during pregnancy.
What does that feel like for the newborn?
It's instructive to try seeing that from newborn's point of view.
So try this 'mind-experiment'.
Follow the stages described below.
At each stage try to put yourself into the situation described.
After reading each sentence, read it once more, then pause with closed eyes for thoughtful imagination.
- 1 Imagine, you were born only a few minutes or hours ago. (Pause)
- 2 As a newborn, a first sensation is of feeling cool. (Pause)
- 3 The visual zone you can see, your universe, is limited to about the length of your arm. (Pause)
- 4 The first visual images you experience were moving shapes, perhaps blue. (Pause)
- 5 After a while those shapes are replaced by another - your first encounter with a human face. (Pause)
- 6 The face is smiling. (Pause)
- 7 You stare into their gaze. (Pause)
- 8 For some reason your lips twitch and curve and pucker. (Pause)
- 9 Something has happened to make you feel warmer (Pause)
- 10 You relax a little - but not much (Pause)
- 11 Be honest with yourself: did you really do all of that? If not ... return to 1 !!
The first minutes of life do not always go like that
But as hours and days pass that face - your mother's - accompanies many comforting experiences.
That face makes your mouth pucker and curve. The face returns the curve as a smile.
Your own face and body come to show a relaxed contentment.
That 'contentment' is the beginning of your own inner-peace.
It's shared too with your mother - your first bit of social peace.
Back in reality ...
- there will also be sounds and other sensations as well as sights
- it's known too that a newborn's contentment can be broken by sudden unexpected experiences.
That scenario points though to some conditions that enable newborn's peace to emerge:
- one condition is the newborn’s naturally restricted ‘zone of awareness’ and
- a second condition is the calm, sensitive care and reassuring mediation provided by the mother.
This photograph from The White Company's advertising is plainly not of a newborn, but it illustrates the trust and contentment that are generated and can be seen in a child's very early life.
The mother’s care performs several functions:
- the feeding and direct physical care of the newborn
- mediation of newborn’s physical experiences
- protection of newborn from sudden unexpected experiences, and
- mediation that softens and welcomes at least some of the unexpected
The emergence of contentment with whatever newborn perceives in its tiny universe is the birth of their Peace.
It can also be seen as the addition of a new quantum of peace in the world.
As a scenario for the origin of peace, the next stages of the scenario model how that peace can grow.
Just as the origin of the newborn’s peace is visible as contentment induced by the mother within the protection of a limited zone of awareness.
That zone grows naturally as newborn grows.
Newborn's peace can be seen as growing into that larger zone as long as there is comforting care and mediation by their mother or other by-now trusted adults.
A further description of the subsequent growth of their peace will be the subject of a later Post.
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