Power and the self

Why people use power is a much more important question than you would expect on first consideration.

On the surface we have quick and easy answers.

People use power to get what they want.

And I suppose that may be sufficient for some - but not for me.

Why do we want? Why is it that we want what we want? What creates those particular desires and needs?

Why do we choose to use power rather than be independent? Why would we make exploiting others’ abilities our principle means of getting what we want? Aren’t there other ways?

Why is it that some just want power? Why do they make the pursuit of power a quest unto itself?

Using power is much more than a means to an end. It has become a singular goal for a vast part of humanity.

Why would someone want to have a political office? Why would someone want a position of authority? Why would someone want to have power over another?

Power itself – the ability to control, influence or seduce others is viewed as a destination rather than a path. We see it as a character trait rather than a behavior. We see it as something you can be, rather than something you can use.

People don’t just want what they want. They don’t just need what they need. People want power.

They don’t just want it to get what they want. Some days we just want to feel like nobody can tell us what to do. Some days we just want to show the world. Some days we just want to make others ask - or wait - or give in. Some days we just want to feel like we have power.

You might say that having power guarantees, or at least increases the chances, that one would always get what they want.

Thomas Hobbes said power takes us beyond our brutish and nasty existence. The reason we seek power is to rise above and we seek more power to secure the power that we have.
Think about that.

There may be some truth in his words. But it does not answer the question why. It only answers why the quest for power doesn’t seem to have limits. It implies that the pursuit of power requires a constant or continuous effort. In the great competition for power, people see it as a limited resource and must repeatedly reacquire it.

Power is about the idea of self. Some days we just want to feel like nobody can tell us what to do. Some days we just want to show the world. Some days we just want to make others ask or wait or give in. Some days we just want to feel like we have power.

We all are individuals who see themselves as discreet and unique. We want to think that as an individual we are at least as important as anyone else.

We build on our uniqueness. We pursue it. We build up a sense and feeling of a self. We actively make a distinction between ourselves and others.

Then we judge that self.

Who is better? Who is more important? Who is bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, prettier, sexier, or wiser – who is better?

Our desires feed this. If we have more of this, or better of that, then we are more of a person. We are a better self.

If I have a better car I must be better than others. If I have more expensive shoes than others then it must be because I am more deserving. If I am rich I am better. If I am the boss, it means I am better.

It makes us feel like we are more. We feel expanded. Enlarged. MORE.

We look to celebrities and authorities and aspire to their level. Always wanting to be more than just a person. More than just me. More than just another.

We take on hobbies, collections, obsessions. We invest and buy. Nothing really matches the feeling of buying something. The acquisition of that which we have yearned for makes us feel like we are somehow more deserving than we were just moments ago. We are more.

Having power makes us feel like we are more than others. And in being more we think we will be happier.

That is the quest. We all live it - every day - all day long. All we really want is that feeling of happiness.

Although it is fleeting – like the thrill of your first drive in your new BMW – for a few moments you feel like more. Then after it fades, we rush to find that feeling again. Because the feeling of power is gone we are afraid that we must have lost some of who we are. Somehow, someway, we must get it back.

We must feed the self.

We call it happiness but is that what it is?

Is our problem not that we aren’t powerful enough – or that we don’t have enough of everything – but that we have not yet understood what happiness is?

I believe that the pursuit of power is about the creation of the self.

We don’t understand the context in which we live as distinct human beings – we don’t recognize our interconnectedness. There is a complex integration of everything with everything. Everything and everyone is part of everything and everyone.

No more than one blade of grass can make up a lawn – we are only a part of humanity - we cannot be humanity. We can never be more than part of the whole. And that is completely OK. It is how it is supposed to be.

And just like that blade of grass we forget that a single blade of grass could never survive alone. Each blade needs the others. The grass needs the elements. Earth, water, wind, and the heat of the sun – take away any of these and the grass ceases to exist. The grass needs other plants and animals. The grass needs the cow to eat it. To digest it. The grass needs the cow to expel past grass to feed the present grass. Otherwise the grass will end. The grass is part of a wider more intertwined existence.

The grass does not delude itself in pretending it is a tree. It plays its absolutely necessary role in the scheme of things.

We want power because we want to be unique. We want to create a self that matters.

Power feeds our sense of self.

We want power because we forget that we already are as powerful as we would ever need to be.