The phrase “second-by-second” narrows peace to the smallest unit of lived experience: the moment when someone chooses restraint over escalation. In that sense, peace is practiced in how we speak, what we assume about others’ motives, and whether we seek to understand before we react.
From there, the idea expands outward: if enough individuals repeatedly make de-escalating choices—pausing before replying, asking a clarifying question, refusing to spread a rumor—those micro-decisions accumulate into a culture that is harder for violence to recruit. [...]
