It was hard not to be challenged, and even inspired, by the brilliant speech US President Barack Obama gave yesterday as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, given to an in house audience of royalty, dignitaries, entertainers, and representatives from the Nobel Committee who are as committed to peace as a neocon is committed to war.  However, the message was intended for a much broader audience and it gave us the first look into the guiding philosophy which the President relies on to make his decisions.

While it may be popular for people to believe in absolutes, as evidenced by the current political dialogue in the United States and abroad, the President asked us to see the reality of the grey area in which we all live.  The world we live in doesn't have the easy and comforting answers that we aspire for as a people, although it is our ethical and moral compass which leads the way to what we aspire to be.  As the president said, "there must be consequences" when diplomacy fails and as the leader of a nation he is duty bound to consider options outside of the teachings of Ghandi and King.

It would be naive to think that people all work towards the general welfare of their neighbours and it would be even more naive to think that all nations will simply strive for the good of humanity.  I think Barack Obama struck an impressive balance between what the world is and the world we want to have, but it remains to be seen what the results of his decisions will be.  However, what he has done already is challenge how we look at the world and the decisions we make because of the beliefs we all hold.  He put the onus on us to understand why we do what we do, just as he must consider options which may be distasteful because the reality of a given situation is what matters, not what we wish reality to be.

I hope for a future without war and suffering, but I share Obama's realism and its up to each of us to determine if what we think is actually true.