Same Earth, Same Human: A Personal Reflection on Peace and Identity
JUST LIFE!
When this image came on screen, I didn’t think. I didn’t analyze.
I just recognized myself in it…instantly.
The moment this image flashed on the screen during Dr. Loreta Castro’s presentation at the Peace Education for All Spaces Summit, something inside me went:
“Amit, that’s you.”
Not “that resonates,” not “that’s interesting.”
Just a very simple recognition:
This is who I am from the inside.Write your text here...
Those four statements on the little girl’s T-shirt captured my identity better than anything I’ve ever said about myself.
Birthplace: Earth
Even as a child, I used to wonder why we divided the world into countries and territories.
Why we created lines on a map and then spent generations defending them.
I always felt it would make more sense if we were simply citizens of the earth.
One World, One Home.
Maybe half the geopolitical tension would disappear if we started there.
Race: Human
We are the most evolved species on this planet, collectively.
So why fight over something as superficial as race?
Our similarities far outweigh our differences, no matter what our skin looks like or how we’re built.
I’ve never understood why we fixate on what separates us rather than what connects us.
Politics: Freedom
Politics, in most forms, is a power struggle… choosing sides, aligning with one group at the expense of another.
What I’ve always valued is freedom:
freedom to think, to speak, to choose your own path, to define success in your own way.
This is why I’ve stayed apolitical my whole life, whether in geopolitics or the workplace.
It isn’t easy…people expect you to take sides.
But I’ve always preferred freedom over the comfort or advantage that comes from picking a camp.
Religion: Love
I do have religious beliefs. I grew up with them, and they’ve stayed quietly inside me.
But I’ve never felt the need to display them loudly or prove a point.
Over time, I’ve come to believe that at the core of every religion is the same idea: love.
Love for humanity, both self and others, and love for nature.
It’s the rules that we create around religion that often end up becoming barriers to that love.
On Peace, War, and the Inside
The truth is, there is more peace in the world than war.
But conflict gets more attention, more headlines, more emotion.
Labels make it easy to divide, but inside, we are actually “same same.”
And yet, the biggest battle we all face is not the war outside.
It’s the one inside…the constant search for inner peace.
That’s the peace we want the most.
But the noise of the outside world makes us forget it even exists.
This image didn’t teach me anything new.
It simply reminded me of a truth I’ve quietly carried since childhood. These are just simple hidden wishes of the child inside.