Peace Sign

If they take my hand
Will it be to burn me or to say ‘amen’
We beckon so we can make amends
And with the same flip of the hand we curse our friends

Where it’s all a blur, you are the hard line
In the disorder, you are the peace sign

It’s getting hard to know
If I’m on the tracks or off the beaten road
When no truth ever easily shows
So I’ll follow you no matter where you go

And when it’s all a blur, you are the hard line
In the disorder, you are the peace sign
And when the riots stir, you are the sound mind
And in the disorder, you are the peace sign

I can’t tell if they’re laughing at me or with me
All these hints and subtleties they got me on my knees
Begging for serenity

And when it’s all a blur, you are the hard line
In the disorder, you are the peace sign
And when riots stir, you are the sound mind
And in the disorder, you are the peace sign
And when it’s all a blur, you are the peace sign
And in the disorder, you are the peace sign

            -Peace Sign, LIGHTS

(These lyrics don’t do the song justice, so listen to the song to see what I’m going to be writing about. And, as Owen Armstrong from Sarah Dessen’s novel Just Listen would put it, “Don’t think or judge, just listen.”)

Recently, I’ve been feeling detached from life at times (my excuse for being weirder than ever)  and somehow, the song “Peace Sign” by LIGHTS calms and inspires me. The idea of a “peace sign” that always stays there when everything else in the world is hectically whirling and rebelling against you is extremely comforting.

There’s just one problem. I have no idea what my peace sign in real life is. Among all the people that I know, and even among my few close friends, none of then are really…stable (I don’t have radioactive friends either, don’t worry) enough to have any symbolic resemblance. I don’t blame them for that, since they have their own lives to care about, and I wouldn’t exactly enjoy being a symbol for someone either. But still, a constant in life would be nice.

However, when I thought about it some more, I realized how much different life would be if there was a peace sign we could rely on. Everything would be so much easier, since no matter how screwed up life got, the peace sign would always be a safe haven. Eventually, people wouldn’t ever want to leave, because there would be no point in trying for anything if the peace sign was already there and people were happy already.

And yeah, my thoughts got really off track. But I realized the downside to having a safe haven. Nothing would have meaning if we could always have a peace sign to make things better.

So after all this overanalyzing, I finally decided to look up the meaning of this song, and supposedly, “Peace Sign” is about God and how He’s always there even in the most extreme conditions. However, I’m not religious, so I didn’t feel like that interpretation applied to me. Personally, I like thinking of the song as the peace sign itself, since it will always calm me and feel better.

(Which reminds me of another quote from Just Listen: “Music is a total constant. That’s why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in your or the world, that one song says the same, just like that moment.”)

So what do you people think? Not including religion, do you have your own equivalent of a “peace sign”? Or do you believe that the point is to be your own inspiration and your own constant? Or is it something else?