The Myth of the Calm Person and the Freedom of What Already Is

In a world that feels like a relentless assault of noise, aggression, and constant overstimulation, we often find ourselves dreaming of becoming a perfectly calm person. We imagine a version of ourselves that moves through the chaos with total indifference, a body-mind that remains unshaken by the demands of social masking or the anxiety of constant interaction. There is a common spiritual ideal of the individual who is never ruffled, much like those characters played by David Niven—the classic English understatement where even the most bizarre or dramatic situations are met without a hint of surprise or emotional imbalance. We look at these figures and think, "If only I could reach that state, I would finally be safe." But we have to ask ourselves: who is this "I" that wants to be calm? And where is this "calmness" located? We treat peace as if it were a distant island we need to row toward, but the wave doesn't need to travel to find the ocean. The wave is the ocean. Similarly, this separate self that feels overwhelmed by the world is trying to build a fortress of silence to protect itself. It seeks a space where nothing is asked of it, where there are no questions, no chats, and no judgments. It wants a structure of rigid rules to lower the volume of its own anxiety. And while creating a quiet environment or practicing meditation may certainly bring comfort right now—just as a cool breeze brings relief on a hot day—it is not a ladder to a higher state of being. Taking a seat in silence doesn't "lead" to enlightenment because enlightenment isn't a prize for the well-behaved or the sufficiently quiet. We see this obsession with imperturbability throughout history. There are stories, like the Zen tale of the monk who was falsely accused of fathering a child. When the angry parents brought the infant to him, he simply said, "Is that so?" and took the child in. When they later discovered the truth and came back to reclaim the baby with profuse apologies, he merely said, "Is that so?" and handed the child back. This is often held up as the ultimate spiritual achievement—a total lack of emotional reaction. Some even take this to an absurd extreme. There was a Theravada monk who once criticized Jiddu Krishnamurti, claiming he couldn't be truly "awakened" because he still expressed deep admiration and wonder for the beauty of natural landscapes. In that monk's view, a truly enlightened person should be completely indifferent even to the majesty of a mountain or a sunset. But does this ideal of total indifference actually mean anything? If the absolute is everything, then it is both the mountain and the admiration of the mountain. It is both the noise of the city and the biological urge to retreat from it. When we turn "being a calm person" into a goal, we are simply adding more noise to the mind. We are creating a new "masking" process, trying to perform the role of the spiritual seeker who has finally "attained" peace.