Peace Needs an IPO

August 16, 2006 - 12:40 PM by Allison

Author Etgar Keret writes in the LA Times:

WHEN I WAS A KID, I wanted peace. Not world peace, the kind beauty queens always ask for, but something local, small, modest, so my father wouldn’t have to go to the reserves anymore and my brother and sister and I wouldn’t spend hours stuck in the bomb shelter. Later on, I wanted a girlfriend and good grades, and after that I wanted a profession — not even a profession, just something that would pay the rent. Then I wanted to travel, and at some point I wanted a car, but I dropped that. Later on, I wanted a child, and now I want peace again. I made one hell of a circle to get back to wanting what I wanted when I was 5.

My mother says it’s probably too late now. She says I should have stuck with wanting peace, that I should have worked at it when I was a kid. But I neglected it, and now it’s impossible. There are things, my mother says, like dancing ballet or playing the violin that, after a certain age, you can’t do seriously anymore. Plus, times have changed. “When you were a kid,” she said, “it was a lot easier to make peace. Everybody was more naive. That doesn’t mean people were better. They were bastards then too. But naive bastards.” Not anymore.

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