CallaFirestormBW
Posts: 3651
Joined: 6/29/2008
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Late coming into the game, but I hope this is still relevant. I apologize in advance... it's a little long, I think... chalk it up to my word fetish. 
I believe that we are all, intrinsically, keepers of our own power. The question is what we -do- with the power that we have. The individuals who express their power and radiate it publicly may not have a greater measure of power than anyone else, but they demonstrate the presence of that power in ways both tangible and intangible, and they use that power actively, rather than passively retaining it and putting it to no good use, or choosing to allow another authority over its management.
I also believe that there are individuals who, for some unknown reason, choose to believe themselves to be 'powerless'... they deny their own capacity to effect change, and throw away their power so completely that they leave themselves up to their eyeballs in 'victimhood'. However, this is not a permanent state, because our power is not like a well that eventually goes dry -- it's more like our circulatory system... a closed system that we can open up to the outside at will. Sometimes, if we open up the system too much or in the wrong place, we hemorrhage and it weakens us. But if the cause of the hemorrhage can be found and repaired, and we haven't slid so far into the loss that we're two breaths from death, the body will make new blood to restore us to our normal level, with or without outside intervention. Our power is the same way... if we stop the hemorrhage of power, and we still have even the smallest spark of belief in our capacity to exist, we can rise out of our victimhood and begin shaping our world from a different perspective. That's not to say that it won't be a LOT of work... but it can be done, and the rewards are amazing.
There are always going to be individuals who draw from their own resources and move and shape things from a place deep within themselves, acting on everything around them, and imprinting it with the particular 'flavor' of their life-force. Too, there will always be people who participate in the process of living by yielding their power up to someone else to bolster that individual's capacity to shape and reshape reality. Typically, where an individual invests a great deal of hir own energy, and recognizes the energetic contribution of others to hir cause(s), xhe will do so with the understanding that what xhe is creating or reconfiguring is an act of creation or transmutation that belongs not -only- to hirself, but to all of those who contributed their essence to the project.
There is a third type of individual, though, and we've seen more than a few of these in positions where they held great sway over the long, bloody, and destructive, history of humankind. These are individuals are the 'misers' of the power dynamic, and either through failure of discipline and control of their own personal resources or through greed and an unwillingness to risk their own energy on the acts that they promote, steal power/effectiveness from others and then turn around and use that stolen resource to empower their own selfish goals, regardless of the damage such actions might do to the reality around them. For many individuals in this category, acts of creation and/or reconfiguration are actually secondary results of their most prominant goal, which is to control -more- power, and to do so for its own sake, rather than to do anything -with- it. An individual of this nature will cheat, lie, steal, and yet will find ways to manipulate a population kept ignorant and afraid into yielding up more of their power and freedom for the miser to hoard. In fact, the tools of ignorance and fear are the primary tools of the power-thief... demoralize a population, then require that, in order to assure that they will be protected, they are told that they must give away their individuality and freedom to act -- and the more they give, the more pressure is applied and the more heinous the fears they are exposed to, in order to assure that they have yielded up everything up to, and sometimes including, their will to live.
For myself, my tendency is to use the power that I have been provided with as an aspect of self-awareness. I recognize my strengths and also recognize the areas in which my power does not resonate well. I commit myself and the power that am vested with, and invest myself in the things that I find worthwhile. I am fortunate, in that I am also entrusted with and given authority over others' power, including the right call upon them to use that power in a manner that I decree, and this can help to overcome some of the areas where my own power poorly resonates or is insufficient to the task at hand, and I cherish and recognize the huge responsibility that comes with being supported by the network of people whom I call 'family' or "House". I also recognize that I do not 'hold' any of their power... what I -do- hold is the authority to make decisions on their behalf that will require investment of their power as well as my own. I apply my power externally (visibly) in the world. I'm typically the 'frontman'... the speaker, and the instigator. My energy is expended early, in a bright, fiery burst... which means that I do best with others around me who burn more slowly and who are able to sustain that initial burst through its full development. I am a project -starter-, not a 'wrap-up man'. Anything we do can be an asset or detriment, depending on how we do it. I have to -remind- myself to finish things. I have a tendency to start too many projects and not be able to finish all of them in a reasonable amount of time, and I tend to get bored with the sloggish pace that it takes change to manifest... but that makes me GREAT at coming up with novel solutions and initiating things, and that's where I focus -- and make sure that I delegate people to hold the helm steady, once I've set a course, no less the Captain when my hands aren't on the wheel.
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Said to me recently: "Look, I know you're the "voice of reason"... but dammit, I LIKE being unreasonable!!!!"
"Your mind is more interested in the challenge of becoming than the challenge of doing." Jon Benson, Bodybuilder/Trainer
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RE: That thing called power... - 
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