Fear, Time and Power

I want to thank Russell, Gunther and Lex for their feedback and questions. This post is generated by their thoughts.

Time is like a funnel. All things must pass through it. The opening is small and there are no other paths. If you want it to go faster it cannot. If you want it to go slower it cannot. No matter how much there is to go through, only so much can pass through at a time. When it is your turn to pass though, you have no option but to go as all the matter above you is pressing its way through. The future pushes the present into the past.

Time makes our typical experience of life linear. It is the thread that is followed. It restricts and limits the flow of our lives into a continuous stream of moments of Now.

Time is the context in which we experience needs.

Needs always exist. They rise and fall in their presence or priority in our mind, but they never go away. When one is fulfilled another follows in its place. We are constantly grasping and clinging and seeking and searching.

We experience our needs within the flow of time. Time forces us to prioritize our needs. We must answer the question – Which need is most important right now? Time not only forces us to, but facilitates our ability to, place our needs in an order or sequence of satisfaction. Living within the realm of time has taught us that. So much of our life is spent in the juggling of needs. The rest is spent in the addressing of needs.

Power uses needs.

Power is the exploitation of ones’ needs to motivate a favorable response. An actor uses the needs of a subject to get what they want. But the mere existence of needs is not enough to create power. There must be an ability on the part of the actor to help or hinder that need. This is a mechanism of power. The Actor uses a mechanism of power against a need to create an emotional state in the subject that requires resolution within that moment. That resolution the actor seeks is a response favorable to them. Power is created when a subject is forced to chose according to the wishes of the actor.

Power uses emotion.

The feelings of power are control, influence and seduction. The Push, the Point and the Pull. This is our experience when we are subject to power dynamics of others. These are the feeling we wish to generate when we use power ourselves.

These feelings of power are always accompanied by the feelings of motivation. Usually we will feel fear or anger or excitement when we are within a power dynamic. Often we will feel all three or a combination of two.

Anger is that feeling of encroachment. We are wanting something we cannot have. Someone is taking away our ability to chose what we want. Be it a desire, a requirement or an attachment, when we are subject to another’s ability to help or hinder the satisfaction of that need, we are usually angry. And usually it shows. It is a residual emotion because it is linked to one of the feelings of power. We are angry because we are being controlled or influenced or even seduced, into making choices we would not otherwise make.

Anger is the encroachment of the self by the will and ability of another.

It is a dangerous emotion and only useful if we use it as a marker of power dynamics. It is the sign that tells us power is happening.

Fear is the first of the anticipation feelings of power. The other is excitement. Fear is negative anticipation; excitement is positive anticipation. Fear usually creates feelings of control. Excitement usually creates feelings of seduction.

In that emotional state of fear, we can see the imminent failure of our wants and needs and we must react to keep it from happening. We expect that the actor will have the ability to hinder our needs, or help others attain their needs at a cost to us. We are afraid that our requirements of survival or avoidance of pain are at risk. We fear that our desires cannot be met, or will be restricted in their success by another person who is using their ability to impact that desire. We are concerned, in varying degrees, about those things, people and ideas to which we are attached. Fear is the awareness that our needs will be somehow compromised or hurt by the ability of the actor, so we prepare ourselves to be subjected to those feelings of control, influence and seduction.

Fear gets us ready to respond to power.

Fear is the anticipation of the encroachment of the self by the will and ability of another.

Excitement is the enjoyable feeling of anticipated power. It is the anticipation of getting something we require or desire or are attached to. It is the sense of impending satisfaction and pleasure. It is the awareness of coming closer to our dreams and wishes. It is the arousal of appetite and desire. It is the imminent satisfaction of the self. It is the knowledge that the actor has the ability to help us. It is the knowledge that the actor is about to satisfy our need.

However it is a conditional satisfaction. There will be a price. Excitement often overcomes the any sense of cost. That is exactly why excitement is motivating. Excitement overwhelms our rational self with its own desires.

Excitement is the anticipation of the fulfillment of the self by the will and ability of another.



Power uses time.

Anger, fear and excitement are the emotions of power which are triggered by time structures of our life

These are the emotions that when coupled with the limiting and demanding effects of time, force a response.

All we experience is a single moment at a time – the Now. In each of those moments are choices to make. The choices are being demanded by the circumstances and the events of those circumstances. A powerful person will respond to those circumstances by applying a mechanism against a need you are experiencing in that moment. Sometimes the need is already there and present in that circumstance. Sometimes that need is not part of the circumstance but is brought forward by the words or actions of the Actor. Whether the need is present or brought forward, the application of the mechanism to the need generates emotions in you. Usually it is a feeling of Control, Influence or Seduction and that feeling of power is accompanied by a feeling of motivation. Maybe fear, maybe anger or maybe excitement.

These feelings are pushed through the funnel of time by time. They must go through and they must be addressed.

Power is a recipe of Need, Ability, Time and Emotion. All brought together as a technique to satisfy the needs of the actor.

Power comes from the exploitation of need by an ability within a moment of time creating an emotion that motivates a choice.

And it is all an illusion.

Control is an illusion.

Fear is an illusion

Excitement is an illusion.

Anger is an erosion of the soul based on an illusion.

It is all illusion.

Choice never goes away.

Time will see to that.

For we only live a moment at a time. No one can really take away the moment. No one can really take away the choice.

Power is a very effective illusion. It only exists in the emotion of the moment.

Remember that fear, excitement and anger are emotions resulting from stimuli. They are feelings. And like all of power they are not real. All of this is amplified and stirred by the flow of time. Less time results in more power. More time results in less power. The more the time allowed the more likely we will find another option or overcome the pressing nature of the need. With time we can recognize power and address it.

That is why the method requires a pause, a step back, a detachment from the immediate and an analysis of the dynamic.

Conquer the emotion so that you can conquer the need. In that act of will and self control, free choice is revived and power is defeated.