My Thesis on Peace
Choosing Peace in a World That Rewards Chaos
I’ve had the dubious privilege of living in six major cities across three countries. Think of it as a rolodex of geography—but more importantly, a rolodex of people. My life as a tech entrepreneur and a decadent five-year stint on the party island of Mykonos (which, let’s face it, feels more like a fever dream than an actual thing) brought me into contact with characters who would be at home in novels rather than neighborhoods. Billionaires, Nobel laureates, mercenaries, artists, supermodels, pro athletes, sports team moguls, teachers, fighters, small business owners, politicians, and, the occasional charming criminal. A real grab bag of humanity.
For all their diversity, these people had one thing in common: they were walking paradoxes. Billionaires funding cancer research while crushing unions. Artists crafting soul-revealing masterpieces while personally self-destructing. Mercenaries hosting thoughtful conversations about the meaning of life when they weren’t, you know, ending it for others. Their contradictions weren’t just part of who they were—they defined them.
Naturally, I tried to crack the code. There had to be some bifurcating factor, some skeleton key that cleanly bucketed the human condition. My first hypothesis was predictably sophomoric: good versus evil. Surely people could be filed into neat little folders like that. But as I observed, listened, and reflected, the answer remained elusive. For every rags-to-riches entrepreneur who used their pain to light a path for others, there was another who let that same pain harden into cruelty. For every billionaire funding a hospital, there was one gleefully evading taxes to buy a fourth yacht.
Eventually, a new dividing line emerged, and it wasn’t between good and evil, lucky and unlucky, smart or dumb, or happy and miserable. It was peace or chaos.
The Peace-Chaos Binary
This epiphany wasn’t born out of a graduate seminar on existentialism. No, it was born out of sheer exhaustion.
I’ve now been a card-carrying member of both the Peace and Chaos parties. In my twenties and early thirties, I chased chaos like it was laced with gold dust. Chaos and I were intimate. I didn’t just flirt with it—I gave it my number, moved in, and let it rearrange my furniture. Chaos wasn’t just a drug—it was my whole personality. I thrived on it, fed off it, let it define my career, my relationships, and my identity. I would conflate it with “hustle”, “leadership” and “masculinity”. Chaos was my jet fuel, driving me to build enough wealth to retire by 30. But that same chaos spurred me to mortgage things I shouldn’t have: my health, my relationships, and my mental stability.
I was the personification of controlled turbulence. I dated toxic, unstable women because their volatility felt electric. I confused anxiety with ambition, sleeplessness with productivity. I drove my team to burnout because I thought relentless pressure was the hallmark of leadership. Calm felt foreign; I craved the edge. Chaos wasn’t just part of my life—it was my life. And chaos rewarded me handsomely—until it didn’t.
When my world began to collapse under the weight of its own velocity, I saw the truth: chaos isn’t just destructive—it’s seductive. It promises excitement, power, and significance, but it’s ultimately unsustainable. Chaos devours everything in its path, including the person who creates it. It’s no wonder that people addicted to chaos are often at war—not with others but with themselves.
Neuroscience Meets Buddhism (Because Why Not)
Chaos isn’t just a poetic concept—it’s a neurological state. When your brain marathons on chaos, the amygdala—the screaming toddler of your brain—takes over, while the prefrontal cortex (the part responsible for logic and self-control) waves a tiny white flag. Chronic chaos is like handing the car keys to your amygdala and saying, “Drive us straight into a wall, please.”
A study from the University of California revealed the physical toll of prolonged stress. Individuals exposed to chronic unpredictability showed significant reductions in gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, the region crucial for emotional regulation. Simultaneously, their amygdalas grew in size, making them more reactive to stress and less capable of finding calm, even in low-stakes scenarios. This neurological remodeling creates a vicious cycle: chaos feeds itself. The more chaotic life becomes, the harder it is to escape.
The effects aren’t just internal. Thanks to epigenetics, you can generously gift your chaos to future generations. Congratulations, your stress is now a family heirloom.
Of course, Buddhists are rolling their eyes at my “discovery.” Buddhism has been teaching this for centuries. The concept of dukkha—often translated as “suffering” or “unsatisfactoriness”—is central to Buddhist philosophy. According to the Buddha, much of human suffering stems from clinging to impermanence and chasing desires that ultimately lead to chaos. The antidote? Mindfulness, meditation, and the Eightfold Path, which cultivate inner peace.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen master, wrote, “Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it.” The more I sought external solutions to chaos—whether through success, validation, or distraction—the more elusive peace became.
Men and Politics: The Epicenter of Modern Chaos
If chaos has a chief characteristic, it’s overwhelmingly male. This isn’t hyperbole—it’s a quantifiable fact. The majority of political, corporate, and institutional power rests in the hands of men. And while power itself isn’t inherently chaotic, the way it’s wielded often is. Historically, men have been trained—some might say programmed—to equate dominance with control, ambition with aggression, and leadership with conquest. The result? A culture that routinely confuses volatility for vision and impulsivity for decisiveness.
In American politics, the Trump era offered a masterclass in chaos as performance art. His leadership style isn’t based on careful strategy or ideological substance but on impulsive decision-making, Twitter spats, and an insatiable thirst for spectacle. This isn’t governance—it’s a highly-produced reality show, with cliffhangers designed to keep viewers tuned in and fact-checkers permanently exhausted. Yet, this chaos was embraced by many as “strong leadership”—a phrase long steeped in testosterone and tradition. Trump isn’t an anomaly; he is a mirror, reflecting a broader societal trend where male leaders are rewarded for bombast and punished for introspection.
The consequences of this dynamic are dangerous. Chaos, when perpetuated by those in power, cascades downward. It infects institutions, policies, and public discourse. It normalizes instability and desensitizes people to dysfunction. More importantly, it reinforces a model of leadership that prioritizes ego over empathy and short-term wins over long-term stability. It’s no coincidence that some of the most chaotic governments, corporations, and movements of the modern era have been spearheaded by men whose unchecked ambition and thirst for control leave destruction in their wake.
To be clear, this isn’t to say women are chaos-immune. Let’s not canonize half the population. But the evidence is glaring: female leaders consistently outshine their male counterparts in areas like resilience, empathy, and crisis management. A 2020 Harvard Business Review study confirmed this, proving that the traits most antithetical to chaos—collaboration, patience, and foresight—tend to be hallmarks of female leadership.
This isn’t just a leadership issue; it’s a societal one. The glorification of male-driven chaos ripples through every layer of culture. It seeps into workplaces, communities, and homes, shaping a world that prioritizes control over cooperation, aggression over understanding, and noise over nuance. We’ve created a system that worships the loudest voice in the room, even when that voice is shouting nonsense.
Peace as a Goal
My shift wasn’t easy. Chaos doesn’t leave quietly—it fights to stay. My transition to peace was slow, awkward, and required more therapy than I care to admit. But over time, I dismantled the systems of chaos I had built my life around. I stopped tolerating toxic relationships. I redefined success, trading perpetual motion for intentional movement. I’ve made peace—not money, not power—my primary goal.
And what I discovered was profound. Peace is magnetic. The more I cultivated it, the more I attracted others who valued it. Toxic people disappeared, replaced by those who brought calm, focus, and clarity into my life. The ripple effect was extraordinary: my relationships deepened, my health improved, and my decision-making sharpened. I’ve never been a more capable businessman or leader. Peace, I realized, wasn’t just a personal state—it was a strategy.
It also helped me to understand other people much better. Now, beyond class, occupation, gender, wealth, power, intelligence, and friendliness, I can typically bucket people into agents of peace or agents of chaos. And it’s a wonderfully powerful predictor of behavior, value and future. There isn’t a single other characteristic about an individual that would tell me more about them.
Today, I am married to a wonderful woman I hardly deserve. My life now is slow, at least compared to my old one. I can sit in my workshop crafting a piece of furniture or go on a hike without a thougth about what the rest of the world is doing, what I may be missing or what else I could be doing. The vast majority of my energy goes into trying to be the best husband, son, friend and future father I can. I feel in control, and at peace mentally. I am surrounded by others at or seeking peace.
Peace isn’t a one-time decision. It’s not a trophy to be won and displayed. It’s a daily practice, a series of deliberate choices. There will always be moments when chaos tries to creep back in, disguised as opportunity or urgency. The temptation to revert to old habits will be strong. But every time you choose peace, you strengthen your ability to protect it.
To those seeking peace, start small. Interrogate your life. What are you tolerating that erodes your stability? Which habits, relationships, or routines perpetuate chaos? What are you truly willing to mortgage for your own inner peace?
Peace isn’t passive. It’s active. It’s the ability to say no to chaos in all its forms—to the toxic relationships, the unsustainable ambitions, the endless noise. Peace requires effort, discipline, and self-awareness. But the rewards are immeasurable.
Those of us—especially men—who have achieved peace have an obligation to guide others to find it. There will always be chaos, it’s a key ingredient of the human spectacle, but weighing peace against it should be a major measuring stick for us, and for the next generation of men.
Thanks for reading. Did you enjoy this? Please share with a friend.
- John
John, you are older and wiser now. 😉