“All things in nature are at war with one another.”Giacomo Leopardi · Zibaldone · 1832 · p. 4135
Peace is the exception; war is nature's rule, even inside us.
The sentence generalizes Leopardi's observation: not only animals fight, but all elements of the world. Matter consumes matter, species exterminate species, and man, who believes he escapes, carries the war inside himself, between desire and fear. Leopardi's favorite example was ant and wasp colonies, which destroy rival colonies of the same species. Even where solidarity seems to exist, there is a border and an enemy.
If conflict is the norm, then peace is not the absence of war but a negotiated pause. Leopardi saw peace as a temporary arrangement between forces that have not stopped, only postponed their clash. Think of your garden: vegetables grow beside flowers, but each steals water, light and soil from the others. The gardener does not eliminate competition; he only channels it. This changes how we judge a calm society: it is not paradise, but a fragile balance requiring constant upkeep. And if peace is upkeep, the question becomes: who pays for it, and how long until the next crisis?
Why it matters An antidote to the illusion that conflict is an anomaly that can be permanently removed from social life.