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Ok, so zendao enjoys playing with the really big questions. Let's face it, I can turn the prospect of mortgage arrears into a Big Question about our ecological footprint - anyway, world peace...

Two things got me wondering. First of all, the other day I came across a piece of politically correct thinking that actually conflicted (horror!) with my own instincts on the matter. I'm not going to tell you what it was, for fear of being lynched, but it occurred to me that if I was ever bothered about world peace it tended to take the form: wouldn't it be nice if everyone thought and behaved the way I'd like them to? You know, the background idea that world peace is disrupted or blocked by other people, not people like me...

The other experience was a recent ski trip. Again, I don't want to go into details, but it was basically our neat little nuclear family of four and another couple who don't plan to have children. They are (and remain!) among our best friends. We got on a treat, all six of us in a self-catering flat the size of our living room, but there were small elements of disharmony. For instance, our friends commented, as politely as their siesta-deprived nerves would allow, on how noisy the boys were. We didn't notice that at all, because we're completely accustomed to it. Just a tiny example.

As you know well if you're not a millionaire recluse or a saintly hermit, it's little things that make the difference between harmony and conflict. Peaceful coexistence isn't all sweetness and light. By our very existence, we make thousands of tiny demands on the people around us, and ninety percent of the time we're quite unaware of exactly what those demands are, or how they inflict themselves on people. As I said, the ski trip went very well indeed, but all six of us were making an extra effort to keep it that way - not only in our behaviour (mucking in, being considerate, keeping our things exaggeratedly tidy) but also in keeping a lid on our individual emotional landscapes. In other words, many of the little freedoms that we take for granted at home had to be tightly controlled. Great for a holiday (as I said once about utopian visions) but you wouldn't want to live there.

So here's a thought experiment: imagine that you are some kind of temporally active God who could make one change - as large a change as you like - to the world which would bring about world peace. (I suppose this is a fancy way of saying: what would you pray for if your god was the kind of entity that could change the world to suit you?) This question is a perfect touchstone for finding your life's work. It's also a question asked by countless science fiction writers as the basis for their plots.

I think we can forget the beauty-queen idea of wishing that everyone could love one another. Imagine that someone had just waved a magic wand and suddenly every single human being on earth was hard-wired to love everyone they met? All your mistakes would be instantly forgiven, so you'd never learn anything about compassion. You'd have no preferences of your own, because you also forgive without a second thought. We'd all be autistic in no time.

So, what else is there? How about wishing that there were no arms dealers, or sick little boys in charge of countries, or profit-hungry global capitalists? You'd be talking about a wholesale alteration in the brains of those you have just blamed. So you've eliminated them, who next? How about people with vile tempers, people who manipulate others with various kinds of blackmail, people who think nothing of abusing children? OK, all those brains altered at a stroke. You can see where this is going. You'll be adjusting the brain of your next-door neighbour because her beloved cat fouls your garden, and your partner for not picking up the towel left on the floor. Imagine what this wish, that everyone could be made to 'give peace a chance', would mean for your own brain?

And here's the rub. Far be it from me to go all preachy on you, but this is a good one. For world peace, everything you do has to be acceptable to everybody. Think about how much you, yes you personally, would have to sacrifice for world peace. You won't know the half of it until it hits you. Would you do it or not? I'll let you right off the hook here - you're not a hypocrite if you decide not.

For instance: yes I can recycle more, buy less, turn the lights off when I leave the room. Yes I can try to be more polite - though it's quite a strain. I can go on self-development projects to develop sweetness and light until I'm blue in the face (and considerably poorer). But if the Cause required it, would I give up my car? My house? My computer? My family life? My freedom? By now, I have to say, I'm resisting. The kind of control that this model requires (we might call this the Hitler model of world peace, or the brave new world where everyone fits) is unacceptable to me I'm afraid. I'd be the first to go off and bury myself at sea, so as not to spoil this idyllic world with my decaying corpse.

So let's take a different model. This time the magic wand has suddenly released everyone's hidden talents and arranged things so everyone is using them fully. This is the personal development vision, and it looks much more promising. We might expect hostility to be reduced to a fraction of its present level at a stroke (we're only hostile when we feel threatened). We might expect also that freedom would be at its practical maximum. There would still be suffering and struggle, but this is a world of creative solutions to snags that crop up in the moment, of going with the world as it is.

Trouble is, if everyone was born complete, sane and happy, there wouldn't be much left to do, would there? Just like in the brave new world, a whole dimension of our lives would be missing. We'd know our kids will end up successful and fulfilled, whatever we do with them. We'd know everything will come out right in the end, just like it does in the movies. There would be no role models, no stars to reach for, nothing to do but maintain the status quo.

So we'd start to get lazy, standards would slip, and soon enough there would be a whole set of new dissatisfactions, problems to be sorted out, things to be done. We'd have to start enforcing acceptable behaviour again, educating one another about right and wrong, arguing about the best thing to do next, resisting people who get too big for their boots, helping people who've found themselves unable to cope on their own, sometimes getting out of our depth in the face of hostility and having to fight back.

Which looks pretty much like the world we live in. We all muddle along, and we all do the best we can. The best of all possible worlds has to be one where there's enough of a challenge for us all to feel passionately that there's a worthwhile life's work to be done. Our very humanity depends on it.

So I'll stick with the world we've got, thank you very much.