All the money in the world could never buy an ounce of peace. They do not sell it in stores. You cannot order it today and have a package delivered tomorrow. It can buy comfort, sure, and opportunity, yes, and we must not discount it, but peace comes differently. You need to build your way up to it and craft it with your own hands, and often, it might look messy and absurd. It is not a tranquil garden. It is the quiet moment as you alternate between the different roles you play in the land of the living. It is a couple of moments sometimes, and sometimes, it is even shorter. I can speak only for myself when I say this, but for me, it is a house of cards. My peace is engineered so shoddily and so broken is every single part of it in itself that it is held together by tape and hope. There is no stability in it, and that it remains intact day after day is as much a surprise to me as it would be to anyone else. But it is my own, its shaky foundations aside and notwithstanding. Every day, I make repairs to it, and when you patch one hole, ten new ones open in it. It is, quite frankly, a full-time job. This leaves little in me to care about the world at large, not that I am apathetic but mostly, I am exhausted. I do not like getting involved anymore. There was a time when I went out of my way to solve and fix things for others, but most of my days are spent tending to this Macgyvered masterpiece, this chaotic contraption that I call peace.
To be left to my devices, to be left to my solitude, is not a preference but a side effect. My personal pocket of peace causes me to remove myself from people, from places, and situations I cannot help or lend a hand in. Often, we begin things in life and do not know where they will lead us, but that they lead us somewhere we do not expect is more common than one might imagine. This is what has happened to my life. Most of my days are spent scheming in secret to get all the moments of peace I can get, and peace aside, since we cannot discount that money can, in fact, buy many things, the rest of my days are spent in earning a living. How else, do you reckon, have I been able to write these bookmarks for so long?