Blank Is Not the Same as Peace
Sometimes, what feels like peace is simply the absence of feeling, until you remember what being present feels like.
8/21/20263 min read
Being alone and feeling alone are two very different things. So are being busy and keeping busy. And perhaps the most obvious one of all looking good, being good, and feeling good.
Shouldn't feeling automatically mean being and looking the part too?
Maybe sometimes. Maybe even most of the time.
But not always.
We are often told that the first step towards feeling better is to start looking better. Get out of bed. Dress up. Show up. Smile. Act like the person you want to become.
A lot of therapists talk about this. There's even a phrase for it, "fake it till you make it."
And there is some truth in it. Sometimes we have to act before we feel. We create the routine, we keep showing up, and somewhere along the way, the mind catches up.
But does it always?
Or are we just becoming very good at training ourselves to look okay?
There is another distinction I have been sitting with lately.
Being blank and being at peace are not the same thing.
Very, very different.
I have been blank for two weeks.
Have I been at peace?
I don't know. Or maybe I don't want to accept that I haven't.
There is a strange comfort in blankness. When you don't feel much, you don't have to explain much either. You don't have to answer the difficult questions, what you want, what you don't, what hurts, what's missing, what needs to change.
You can simply exist. And some weeks, existing is all you have the energy for.
But last night, for thirty minutes, I felt something else entirely.
I was in my weekly healing session, a small group of people who believe that love and intention can be sent simply by holding someone in your mind. No agenda. No performance. Just people, together, sending something outward, to themselves, to the ones they love, to whoever might need it.
Pure gratitude. Pure love. Pure belief.
And for those thirty minutes, I wasn't blank. My shoulders dropped before I noticed they'd been carrying anything. My breath slowed on its own, without me telling it to. There was a warmth that didn't come from the room. Something in my chest that had been clenched for two weeks simply, opened.
I was here.
Not numb. Not neutral.
Peaceful.
It felt different. It felt like the difference itself was the point. Then the session ended, and the blankness came back to meet me at the door, like it had been waiting.
But this time, I could tell them apart.
That may be the cost of awareness. Once you've felt something clearly, you can't unfeel having known it. You can still choose blankness afterward. But you can no longer call it peace and mean it.
It's easier to live without asking. Easier to be indifferent than to try, because trying brings uncertainty, and uncertainty might bring answers you weren't ready to face.
I asked a dear friend, once, which is better: a life of indifference that avoids confrontation and discomfort altogether, or a life that goes looking for what's actually there, the feelings, the desires, the purpose, the capability, accepting that real clarity and fulfilment come paired with real pain.
There is no right answer.
The one who chooses indifference may never know what peace feels like. But what you've never touched doesn't register as a loss. We don't miss what we've never had, until we have it.
And once we do, the ground moves. Peace stops being an idea we've heard other people describe and becomes a place we've actually stood. Clarity stops being a word and becomes a memory the body reaches for. And once known, it stops feeling optional. It becomes something we need.
Maybe life was never meant to be a straight graph. Maybe it's a sine wave.
Up. Down. Clarity. Confusion. Peace. Pain. Connection. Blankness.
And maybe the real question isn't which is better. Maybe the question is simpler, and harder:
What kind of life do you want?
A straight line, stable, predictable, safer?
Or a wave, where the lows cut deeper, but the highs take you somewhere the line never could?
Both are choices. Neither deserves judgment.
Some of us need the stillness of the line. Some of us need the movement of the wave. Some aren't ready to look within yet. Some are tired of running from themselves. Some are content with what they have. Some are searching for something they can't yet name.
All of it deserves respect.
Maybe it isn't our place to convince anyone toward the life we'd choose. Maybe it's simply to support them in the one they do. Because peace is personal. So is pain. So is the courage it takes to look inward at all. And maybe what matters most isn't the line or the wave.
It's knowing you're choosing.
Consciously.
Because the greatest difference in a life isn't always between being and feeling. Sometimes it's the space between living on autopilot and knowing exactly why you're living the way you are.
Blank was never the same as at peace. I just needed thirty minutes to remember what the difference feels like.