It is spring. And with spring comes both expected and unexpected changes into our household.
The winter semester has ended and my children are scheduled to return home from college and university. Bedrooms that have been vacant for eight months – other than a “visit” at Xmas - are now being used again. With the use of the bedroom comes a delightful package of meals, laundry, television and apparently unlimited access to a computer in Dad’s office to check your email whenever you feel the need. Even if Dad has to get started writing for the day. Good deal.
When two or more of such beloved offspring return home within the same short span one’s household experiences changes. Changes in routine. Changes in habits.
Habits. Do you realize how important habits are to you? How integral they are to daily survival. How significant they are to your ability to accomplish what little you can in a day?
We need habits.
Oops - I talked about needs – you can see where I am going now….can’t you?
But let me finish…
To add to the subtle yet considerable change, is the steady maturation of a teenage son who, though he has never stopped living with us in 16 years, has changed the way he lives with us - quite a bit. He now stays up after we are in bed – doing whatever it is he does. He insists on having his allowance before Friday night arrives. He comes home anytime before or after supper depending on when his friends eat supper. (Why they can’t go home when he has supper is one of my favorite questions.) He doesn’t ask for supper yet he is grateful when a plate is on the table just in case. Of course from time to time I scrape that plate into the waste because he didn’t show.
Of late, as the weather and his hormones have changed (Spring Fever – new girlfriend – super-hottie) he has decided that he wants – for the first time in 10 years of school - to pack his lunch.
As his parent I am thrilled to see him eat better. I am thrilled that he wants to be healthy. I am thrilled to see him stay at school during lunch and not be late for fourth period every day. Yet when he wants to leisurely make that lunch during the same morning time that I have used to make his little brother’s lunch everyday for the past 5 years – and he happens to use the last of the cold meat and the last of the cheese and the last of fruit snacks - you might see how my daily habits are… modified. And I must modify them as an exercise in improv – without warning and on the fly.
You might recognize an undertone of anger in my words.
Oops I said anger – now you must know what I am talking about.
So let me be clear – I love my kids. I love seeing my son be more responsible with his health and I love it when my son and daughter come home and hang out for a few days.
However, these changes in my life have crystallized a deep and powerful insight.
I love my habits. I need my habits. I am not very good at changing my habits without warning and I don’t like it when I do.
Of course because I understand how power works and I understand how to turn the power dynamic into depowerment, I see my need for habits as my weakness that makes me vulnerable to power.
Yes I am weak. My habit is to get up. Make coffee. Go wake up my nine year old son. Go to the kitchen make his lunch and my wife’s lunch. Pour the coffee. Take a coffee to my wife. Bring my son to the kitchen and make his breakfast. Go with my coffee to my office and begin my day’s writing.
So when my older son is in the kitchen inspired to make a lunch, I have to wait. When I pour the coffee and my daughter wants one too (luckily I made extra just in case) and she beats me to my computer – well my heart begins to feel a little frustrated anger.
And anger is a sign of power…
So the analysis ensues. What is my need? What is their need? What are my choices?
And I acquire a couple of lessons on power. First the obvious based on the analysis.
People need habits. They are essential. So they are a source of power. Anything that impacts those habits can be a mechanism of power.
Habits are about not making choices. Habits are about freeing us from having to make choices. Habits are choices already made. So interfering with habits has the effect of controlling or influencing our choices. It is simply because the regular choice can no longer be made.
Now the subtle.
Power does not have to be intentional.
Having your choices changed because of someone else is power. Power is not about the actor it is about the subject in everyway. It is about the subject because it is the subject’s choice that is impacted. It is about the subject because power is a feeling. It is an emotion in the subject that causes them to consider and make other choices than they would but for the power. Power is about the subject because what creates the power is the subject’s need. The actor’s ability, without the subject’s need, does not create power. So although many of us use power intentionally and can be very good at it most of the time, the truth is so much power is not used but arises nonetheless. All that matters is that the subject experienced it.
Power is an experience.
Now the most important…
There is no such thing as a relationship without power. To live in proximity to others means that there will be power. Because there will always be needs and there is no way to keep others from intentionally or unintentionally having an impact on those needs.
To love others is to willingly subject yourself to their power.
There are two things you can try to do in relationships that you want to have but seem to have too much power in them.
Learn to be flexible. Today my children unknowingly taught me about power. I had a choice. I could have turned it into a power dynamic or I could see it as power that was not planned and without malice. I could see it as some of the necessary power in my life. I could see it as a lesson. I could bend with the wind and become more flexible. Simple but not easy.
They don’t even know I was bothered - or that I am writing this.
The other solution is much harder…like flexibility isn’t hard enough.
Take your relationships beyond expectations and desires…
That might be true love.
Unfortunately I am no better at that one than any of you. I suffer with it every day. Like today. All I can offer you is what has been told to me and what I recognize as truth.
We must try to get outside the “self” we have created and be what we are in our essence.
Walking the path with all those we are intrinsically connected to.
I think they call that compassion.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
If you are reading this....
I would love to have your thoughts or comments. Just click "Comment" below and let me know. Or visit onhavingpower.com and send me an email...
Thanks
Les
Thanks
Les
The pursuit of power
Inside me is a little man. A little man who drives this bus but does not know where it is going. He wants to the in charge. He wants to be a great bus driver. But he is not. He cannot be a great bus driver because he hasn’t the slightest clue where he is headed. Yes he can keep the bus on the road. He follows all the rules and he doesn’t crash into things – unless he wants to. Sometimes he wants to. He wants to because he wants people to notice what a great bus driver he is.
He has many habits that are upsetting. When he finds another bus driver on the road he tends to consider them inferior. Not because they are. But because he sees himself as inferior and needs someone to be below him. He can’t stand the thought that he’s the worst. Of course he doesn’t realize that there are no great or terrible bus drivers. They are all the same. They just drive the bus. They don’t get to decide where it is going. They don’t get to decide what is important. They just drive.
The bus driver wants to think that his bus is bigger and better than all the others. No, as you would expect, it is not. His bus is so similar to all the other buses that it is hard to tell one from another. Even if one has a bigger tank or another has more seats, they are all just buses. They are just Buses. That is good enough. But he doesn’t think so. And that is what pushes him to pretend.
The bus driver thinks that since they do all this driving that they should be able to decide the rules of the road and who should cover which routes. But he is just a bus driver like all the others who together cover all the routes necessary. Because he doesn’t see all the routes or all the other drivers he thinks that there are problems. He likes to criticize. He likes to find fault. But he doesn’t see the combination of the whole so he can’t see how he is wrong. The only real problem is that he doesn’t see the whole route map or all the other buses. If he did he would know there are no routes uncovered. And everyone has all they need. Yet he sits behind his wheel complaining and telling those on his bus how the bus system is inadequate.
Silly guy.
When he comes to a four way stop he always thinks he is the only one who knows what to do. The other drivers are treated like they are stupid. He makes the rules up and then thinks that they are the best. Then he uses his simple idea to judge the merits of the other bus drivers at the stop. He doesn’t realize that the stop is there for a reason. And that reason is accomplished by the fact that everyone stops. The important word here is not rules. It is stop. Too bad the bus driver doesn’t get it.
The roads are all connected. The routes all come together. The needs are all taken care of. There is lots of gas for everyone. There are enough routes that we can go anywhere.
I wish the bus driver would just drive the bus.
This is how I see people and their pursuit of power. I wish we would all just drive our bus.
He has many habits that are upsetting. When he finds another bus driver on the road he tends to consider them inferior. Not because they are. But because he sees himself as inferior and needs someone to be below him. He can’t stand the thought that he’s the worst. Of course he doesn’t realize that there are no great or terrible bus drivers. They are all the same. They just drive the bus. They don’t get to decide where it is going. They don’t get to decide what is important. They just drive.
The bus driver wants to think that his bus is bigger and better than all the others. No, as you would expect, it is not. His bus is so similar to all the other buses that it is hard to tell one from another. Even if one has a bigger tank or another has more seats, they are all just buses. They are just Buses. That is good enough. But he doesn’t think so. And that is what pushes him to pretend.
The bus driver thinks that since they do all this driving that they should be able to decide the rules of the road and who should cover which routes. But he is just a bus driver like all the others who together cover all the routes necessary. Because he doesn’t see all the routes or all the other drivers he thinks that there are problems. He likes to criticize. He likes to find fault. But he doesn’t see the combination of the whole so he can’t see how he is wrong. The only real problem is that he doesn’t see the whole route map or all the other buses. If he did he would know there are no routes uncovered. And everyone has all they need. Yet he sits behind his wheel complaining and telling those on his bus how the bus system is inadequate.
Silly guy.
When he comes to a four way stop he always thinks he is the only one who knows what to do. The other drivers are treated like they are stupid. He makes the rules up and then thinks that they are the best. Then he uses his simple idea to judge the merits of the other bus drivers at the stop. He doesn’t realize that the stop is there for a reason. And that reason is accomplished by the fact that everyone stops. The important word here is not rules. It is stop. Too bad the bus driver doesn’t get it.
The roads are all connected. The routes all come together. The needs are all taken care of. There is lots of gas for everyone. There are enough routes that we can go anywhere.
I wish the bus driver would just drive the bus.
This is how I see people and their pursuit of power. I wish we would all just drive our bus.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The first secret of power
I was looking for this quote from Herodotus –
“Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; While others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.”
When I found this one…
“Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.”
And this one…
“Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.”
The truth is as old as the hills. We have known the truth about power forever. However, very few have known how to use it. Fewer have the ability necessary to use it. That ability is self control. This is a truly important secret.
Understanding cause and effect is the only way to understand power. It is a bit of a paradox that the first lesson in power is that we control nothing. Control is an illusion. But without that lesson we continue in our search for power by looking at powerful people thinking that they have some ability to control others. Some ability we need to attain. Some ability that we never seem to understand much less possess.
But when you accept, this obviously ancient truth, that control does not exist, then you begin to see the process that creates power. The process of self control.
The only thing you control is what you do right now. The only thing you control is how you respond to the circumstances before you. That is how powerful people have power. They control their response. They control their response to the people around them. They give them what they want. They promise what they want. They tell them what they want to hear. There actions are a response to the people they want to have some control or influence over.
Nothing else can be controlled. The rest is the effect of all the causes and conditions that have culminated in the result you see and hear. As Herodotus said, we do not control circumstances. But we will control ourselves within them, and use them, and thus appear to HAVE power.
It’s just an illusion.
“Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; While others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.”
When I found this one…
“Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.”
And this one…
“Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.”
The truth is as old as the hills. We have known the truth about power forever. However, very few have known how to use it. Fewer have the ability necessary to use it. That ability is self control. This is a truly important secret.
Understanding cause and effect is the only way to understand power. It is a bit of a paradox that the first lesson in power is that we control nothing. Control is an illusion. But without that lesson we continue in our search for power by looking at powerful people thinking that they have some ability to control others. Some ability we need to attain. Some ability that we never seem to understand much less possess.
But when you accept, this obviously ancient truth, that control does not exist, then you begin to see the process that creates power. The process of self control.
The only thing you control is what you do right now. The only thing you control is how you respond to the circumstances before you. That is how powerful people have power. They control their response. They control their response to the people around them. They give them what they want. They promise what they want. They tell them what they want to hear. There actions are a response to the people they want to have some control or influence over.
Nothing else can be controlled. The rest is the effect of all the causes and conditions that have culminated in the result you see and hear. As Herodotus said, we do not control circumstances. But we will control ourselves within them, and use them, and thus appear to HAVE power.
It’s just an illusion.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Self
Power is the thing that feeds the self.
It is what delivers that intoxicating sense that you are right and the world is wrong. It creates an overbearing distinct individuality. It is the source and rresult of all conflict. conflict we create to create an illusion. The illusion is that we are more important than all others
We want power because it separates us from each other.
More important though is the fact that it turns those we are living with into the tools we use to obtain our desires. People become a means rather than an end.
When you understand that power does not work without need. Then you see that power is the exploitation of others needs to obtain what we want to build our self. To endorse and create an individual being above all others.
How can we see power as good when it only works because we reduce others to objects we use for our satisfaction? Power turns people into things.
It doesn't matter if you use it for good. It fundamentally reflects a lack of understanding of the nature of our reality.
It is what delivers that intoxicating sense that you are right and the world is wrong. It creates an overbearing distinct individuality. It is the source and rresult of all conflict. conflict we create to create an illusion. The illusion is that we are more important than all others
We want power because it separates us from each other.
More important though is the fact that it turns those we are living with into the tools we use to obtain our desires. People become a means rather than an end.
When you understand that power does not work without need. Then you see that power is the exploitation of others needs to obtain what we want to build our self. To endorse and create an individual being above all others.
How can we see power as good when it only works because we reduce others to objects we use for our satisfaction? Power turns people into things.
It doesn't matter if you use it for good. It fundamentally reflects a lack of understanding of the nature of our reality.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Parable on Power
Whenever I find myself thinking that power can be a good thing or that having power may be a good strategy, I remember two things...
First - once power is in play it is hard to control.
Second - I will always have needs, so there will always be someone with more power.
Here is an old fable about a Deer and a Tiger and a man with the power to kill.
The mountains were splendid.
But Wu Tang didn't care a whit for scenery.
He and his son spent a lot of time hunting in these mountains. Wu Tang was a dead shot with his bow and arrow. He never missed. He was such a good shot that he barely had to aim. He just picked a target, pulled his bow, and shot it down. No animal was quick enough or agile enough to escape his arrows.
"Look, over there, a little fawn!"
A little fawn must be one of the most adorable animals in nature, but Wu Tang wasn't in the mountains to admire nature. As soon as he spotted it, he whipped an arrow out of his quiver and zoom! The fawn fell over dead.
Then Wu noticed its mother a few feet away in the grass. He couldn't get a good shot at her from his angle, so he waited.
She was terribly sad about her little baby! She let out a cry as she started licking her baby's wounds. Just as she was concentrating on that, Wu pulled off a quick shot and the mother deer died on the spot.
But that wasn't enough for Wu.
He thought there might be more deer in the area, because he heard something rustling around in the grass. There was at least one more in there, maybe two.
"Three deer is better than two," he thought, as he prepared.
Then he located the source of the sound and shot at a shadow in the grass. He was proud to hear the sound of another dead body falling to the ground, but his pride turned to anguish when he heard a groan!
"Deer don't groan like that! That was a human voice!"
Wu rushed over and saw that his third shot had killed not a deer, but his own son, who had come out hunting with him!
Wu was stupefied. He seemed to hear a voice telling him, "Wu Tang! Now do you now what it is like to see your baby shot to death with an arrow? Animals love their young as much as you do. How much anguish have you caused animal parents!"
Wu stood there, numb, too heartbroken to pay attention to a sound that came from the side.
Then in a flash he realized that the other animal he had heard in the grass was not a deer, but a tiger! But he was too late ...
First - once power is in play it is hard to control.
Second - I will always have needs, so there will always be someone with more power.
Here is an old fable about a Deer and a Tiger and a man with the power to kill.
The mountains were splendid.
But Wu Tang didn't care a whit for scenery.
He and his son spent a lot of time hunting in these mountains. Wu Tang was a dead shot with his bow and arrow. He never missed. He was such a good shot that he barely had to aim. He just picked a target, pulled his bow, and shot it down. No animal was quick enough or agile enough to escape his arrows.
"Look, over there, a little fawn!"
A little fawn must be one of the most adorable animals in nature, but Wu Tang wasn't in the mountains to admire nature. As soon as he spotted it, he whipped an arrow out of his quiver and zoom! The fawn fell over dead.
Then Wu noticed its mother a few feet away in the grass. He couldn't get a good shot at her from his angle, so he waited.
She was terribly sad about her little baby! She let out a cry as she started licking her baby's wounds. Just as she was concentrating on that, Wu pulled off a quick shot and the mother deer died on the spot.
But that wasn't enough for Wu.
He thought there might be more deer in the area, because he heard something rustling around in the grass. There was at least one more in there, maybe two.
"Three deer is better than two," he thought, as he prepared.
Then he located the source of the sound and shot at a shadow in the grass. He was proud to hear the sound of another dead body falling to the ground, but his pride turned to anguish when he heard a groan!
"Deer don't groan like that! That was a human voice!"
Wu rushed over and saw that his third shot had killed not a deer, but his own son, who had come out hunting with him!
Wu was stupefied. He seemed to hear a voice telling him, "Wu Tang! Now do you now what it is like to see your baby shot to death with an arrow? Animals love their young as much as you do. How much anguish have you caused animal parents!"
Wu stood there, numb, too heartbroken to pay attention to a sound that came from the side.
Then in a flash he realized that the other animal he had heard in the grass was not a deer, but a tiger! But he was too late ...
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Think of the power...
http://finance.sympatico.msn.ca/investing/insight/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3313995
The next big book I hope to write is one which explains how the needs and abilities analysis of power can lead to a revolution in our society.
We live in a free market. And that theme will go down in history as defining this age. The pursuit of wealth is the central purpose behind the actions of most people within this age.
The pursuit of wealth is nothing more than the pursuit of power. We seek money not because the stuff smells nice or looks wonderful hanging on the wall. We seek it because it provides us with the ability to satisfy all of our desires.
(Note I said desires not needs. We don't really even know what we need. We are only just discovering that.)
However behind this massive world wide quest for money is the greatest opportunity for power that has ever existed.
You can see the potential when you consider that CEO's around the world have become so concerned about what customers think of their companies that they are starting up committees to address global warming.
In a more traditional view of business - a la Freidman - these guys really have no right to be spending shareholder profits on such endeavours.
However we live in a marketplace of high competition and low margins. Every sale matters and when people tell corporate executives that the "personality" of a brand includes its behaviour vis. social matters like the environment and philanthropy, they sit up and listen.
The truth is they want your money so badly they will do what ever you demand to get it.
If corporations will rule the world and traditional democracy will die, then we can actively - deliberately re-create democracy with our spending. We don't have to cast a ballot in an election. We simply have to use our ability to buy the competitiors' products to trigger the power in the need of corporations.
They want money so bad we have endless power.
So use it....
The next big book I hope to write is one which explains how the needs and abilities analysis of power can lead to a revolution in our society.
We live in a free market. And that theme will go down in history as defining this age. The pursuit of wealth is the central purpose behind the actions of most people within this age.
The pursuit of wealth is nothing more than the pursuit of power. We seek money not because the stuff smells nice or looks wonderful hanging on the wall. We seek it because it provides us with the ability to satisfy all of our desires.
(Note I said desires not needs. We don't really even know what we need. We are only just discovering that.)
However behind this massive world wide quest for money is the greatest opportunity for power that has ever existed.
You can see the potential when you consider that CEO's around the world have become so concerned about what customers think of their companies that they are starting up committees to address global warming.
In a more traditional view of business - a la Freidman - these guys really have no right to be spending shareholder profits on such endeavours.
However we live in a marketplace of high competition and low margins. Every sale matters and when people tell corporate executives that the "personality" of a brand includes its behaviour vis. social matters like the environment and philanthropy, they sit up and listen.
The truth is they want your money so badly they will do what ever you demand to get it.
If corporations will rule the world and traditional democracy will die, then we can actively - deliberately re-create democracy with our spending. We don't have to cast a ballot in an election. We simply have to use our ability to buy the competitiors' products to trigger the power in the need of corporations.
They want money so bad we have endless power.
So use it....
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
surfing....
Just a little thought I saw as I was surfing zaadz...
Power has limits...and it has problems.
But I guess we all know that.
Later
http://books.zaadz.com/
Source: Thomas Merton: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters Series), Page: 130 Contributed by: Bob Royal. Thomas Merton said
For power can guarantee the interests of some men but it can never foster the good of man. Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all the others. Only love can attain and preserve the good of all. Any claim to build the security of all on force is a manifest imposture.
Power has limits...and it has problems.
But I guess we all know that.
Later
http://books.zaadz.com/
Source: Thomas Merton: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters Series), Page: 130 Contributed by: Bob Royal. Thomas Merton said
For power can guarantee the interests of some men but it can never foster the good of man. Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all the others. Only love can attain and preserve the good of all. Any claim to build the security of all on force is a manifest imposture.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Herein lies the secret...
The more I think and learn about power the more this is true.
Those who know me, know I love this one.
I hope you find secrets in it.
Later….
33
Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.
If you realize that you have enough,
you are truly rich.
If you stay in the center
and embrace death with your whole heart,
you will endure forever.
Tao Te Ching as Translated by Stephen Mitchel
Those who know me, know I love this one.
I hope you find secrets in it.
Later….
33
Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.
If you realize that you have enough,
you are truly rich.
If you stay in the center
and embrace death with your whole heart,
you will endure forever.
Tao Te Ching as Translated by Stephen Mitchel
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
A beautiful day in Brockville
I had a great day in Brockville yesterday. I met some wonderful community people who genuinely want to make life in their region happier for the younger of us. I met teachers that still have passion and compassion for their students. I met young people who are asking the great questions and looking at their world with healthy hope and desire.
It was my pleasure to be there.
Please allow me a little ramble of thoughts stimulated by our time together.
The thing that seduces me into teaching is the flash of joy that young people exhibit from time to time when they are breaking through into new thoughts. As people, they are still in “discovery mode.” Although they have come a long way since infancy, there remain sophistications that adult living and adult responsibilities will eventually impose upon them but as yet they are free from. Until then there is an expectation that life will bring them all the things they dream. There is an acknowledgment that they don’t yet know it all - and that they want to.
They absorb information. It passes through a less refined machine that is not designed to keep them safe (as it becomes when we age) but designed to help them grow. Make no mistake they don’t just accept everything people say to them. There is nothing gullible about them. They simply have a great combination of openness and skepticism. They still use emotion in combination with intellect. Because they come to the circumstance with the expectation that they will learn, they consider before they assimilate or discard.
Hence I have always found it easy to teach the concepts of power to younger audiences. I love teaching the course at Fleming.
Adults on the other hand have well established views on power and its place in their lives. When I speak to adults I find I have to persuade rather then reveal.
It has been my experience both as a teacher of adults, and also as a learner now back in school, that we tend to receive information in a closed way. We have constructed an impenetrable wall that has doors. We will not let anything new in unless it completely fits the way they want to see the world. If so we will open the door and let it in.
There is no longer a sense of discovery or joy in our learning.
It is more like fear.
Maybe it’s just that feeling of power we know so well. We understand that new information impacts the choices we make and we have become very anxious about change and very reliant on habits. Habits in our daily lives because it is the only way to survive the day and complete everything that must be done. Habits in our relationships because they are comfortable even when they are unhappy. Habits in our thinking because to change our views hurts our self image.
When adults open themselves up to new ideas they think they have to decide right then and there if what they are being presented with is “true or false.”
If it is false it must be rejected out of hand for risk that it will pollute their world view. The filter we use to determine such veracity is one of emotion - whether or not it makes us uncomfortable. If it causes us to question too many things we hold as “true” it is simply too much work. If we have to reevaluate too many of our views, we will cling to what we already have and go about making the same mistakes and wondering why nothing changes.
On the other hand when we see something that looks like truth, we think we have to immediately find some way to embody it. We are compelled to make it real in our lives. For although we resist, we still yearn for truth. We want to live truth.
This all or nothing approach often leaves us out in the cold when it comes to understanding power. We cling to the myths of power because they make us comfortable.
The thought that our relationships are full of power is upsetting.
The thought that we use power everyday as a parent, friend, employee, or spouse challenges our moral judgment of ourselves.
The idea that power is a methodology based on the exploitation of another person’s need, and available to all people, flies in the face of our life-long rationalization that power is OK. In fact, maybe it’s even a worthwhile pursuit.
Teachers like me, are particularly upset when you remind us that our lives are all about authoritative power imposed on children and parents by our laws. It is the “necessary” socialization of an individual. It is the training required to fit in. Otherwise you don’t belong.
Sometimes we forget that it is all about love.
When we come to the education power dynamic with a predominant intention based in love…well…then it doesn’t feel like power does it?
Maybe it isn’t…
Is power a good or bad thing? Well a better question is, can we live without power?
A better question yet is what is the opposite of power?
Compassion – when a teacher comes to the table with compassion they are not using their ability to control and exploit the needs of a young person to attain some end. They are simply there to help address those needs without any desire to affect own personal needs.
We didn’t get to talk about this yesterday. Power always has two sides - two dynamics. One with the Subjects needs in play – and since we don’t use power unless we need something – a dynamic with the Actors needs in play. It’s is how kids seem to be able to turn the tables in places like grocery store isles.
Nonetheless I think power has to have two sides to be power. When you drop your side of the bipolar dynamic – it is no longer power. It is compassion.
I saw a lot of compassion yesterday. It made me feel wonderful about the city of Brockville.
It was my pleasure to be there.
Please allow me a little ramble of thoughts stimulated by our time together.
The thing that seduces me into teaching is the flash of joy that young people exhibit from time to time when they are breaking through into new thoughts. As people, they are still in “discovery mode.” Although they have come a long way since infancy, there remain sophistications that adult living and adult responsibilities will eventually impose upon them but as yet they are free from. Until then there is an expectation that life will bring them all the things they dream. There is an acknowledgment that they don’t yet know it all - and that they want to.
They absorb information. It passes through a less refined machine that is not designed to keep them safe (as it becomes when we age) but designed to help them grow. Make no mistake they don’t just accept everything people say to them. There is nothing gullible about them. They simply have a great combination of openness and skepticism. They still use emotion in combination with intellect. Because they come to the circumstance with the expectation that they will learn, they consider before they assimilate or discard.
Hence I have always found it easy to teach the concepts of power to younger audiences. I love teaching the course at Fleming.
Adults on the other hand have well established views on power and its place in their lives. When I speak to adults I find I have to persuade rather then reveal.
It has been my experience both as a teacher of adults, and also as a learner now back in school, that we tend to receive information in a closed way. We have constructed an impenetrable wall that has doors. We will not let anything new in unless it completely fits the way they want to see the world. If so we will open the door and let it in.
There is no longer a sense of discovery or joy in our learning.
It is more like fear.
Maybe it’s just that feeling of power we know so well. We understand that new information impacts the choices we make and we have become very anxious about change and very reliant on habits. Habits in our daily lives because it is the only way to survive the day and complete everything that must be done. Habits in our relationships because they are comfortable even when they are unhappy. Habits in our thinking because to change our views hurts our self image.
When adults open themselves up to new ideas they think they have to decide right then and there if what they are being presented with is “true or false.”
If it is false it must be rejected out of hand for risk that it will pollute their world view. The filter we use to determine such veracity is one of emotion - whether or not it makes us uncomfortable. If it causes us to question too many things we hold as “true” it is simply too much work. If we have to reevaluate too many of our views, we will cling to what we already have and go about making the same mistakes and wondering why nothing changes.
On the other hand when we see something that looks like truth, we think we have to immediately find some way to embody it. We are compelled to make it real in our lives. For although we resist, we still yearn for truth. We want to live truth.
This all or nothing approach often leaves us out in the cold when it comes to understanding power. We cling to the myths of power because they make us comfortable.
The thought that our relationships are full of power is upsetting.
The thought that we use power everyday as a parent, friend, employee, or spouse challenges our moral judgment of ourselves.
The idea that power is a methodology based on the exploitation of another person’s need, and available to all people, flies in the face of our life-long rationalization that power is OK. In fact, maybe it’s even a worthwhile pursuit.
Teachers like me, are particularly upset when you remind us that our lives are all about authoritative power imposed on children and parents by our laws. It is the “necessary” socialization of an individual. It is the training required to fit in. Otherwise you don’t belong.
Sometimes we forget that it is all about love.
When we come to the education power dynamic with a predominant intention based in love…well…then it doesn’t feel like power does it?
Maybe it isn’t…
Is power a good or bad thing? Well a better question is, can we live without power?
A better question yet is what is the opposite of power?
Compassion – when a teacher comes to the table with compassion they are not using their ability to control and exploit the needs of a young person to attain some end. They are simply there to help address those needs without any desire to affect own personal needs.
We didn’t get to talk about this yesterday. Power always has two sides - two dynamics. One with the Subjects needs in play – and since we don’t use power unless we need something – a dynamic with the Actors needs in play. It’s is how kids seem to be able to turn the tables in places like grocery store isles.
Nonetheless I think power has to have two sides to be power. When you drop your side of the bipolar dynamic – it is no longer power. It is compassion.
I saw a lot of compassion yesterday. It made me feel wonderful about the city of Brockville.
Monday, February 26, 2007
The Art of Getting Homework Done
I was reading the Art of War today.
It is so simple and yet with every group of people I speak to, they seem to miss it.
The one who would overcome the other does not force their way but uses the weaknesses of the other to succeed. It allows reality. It uses reality. It does not fight it.
My son has been having some difficulty at school.
He finds so much of what he has to do in class to be virtually pointless. He says, “It’s stupid. I don’t need to do it. I won’t do it. I can’t do it.”
I tell him he is fighting what is.
He thinks that by refusing to do it and then being very difficult about it – arguing, crying, ignoring, avoiding - he wins. His teacher gives up. His mother gives up. His father gives up and then he doesn’t have to do it.
He sees the battle as victorious but he loses sight of the war.
Last night I accepted Sun Tzu’s, Lao Tzu’s and Chang Tzu’s words.
I said, “Ok. Don’t do it. I guess you get to do grade three twice. They won’t let you out of grade three if you can’t do these things. I am finished fighting with you. I just want us both to be happy.”
I walked away and he began to work.
Water flows downhill and power is about needs.
Sun Tzu – The Art of War – Chapter VITranslated from the Chinese with Introduction and Critical Notes BY LIONEL GILES, M.A. Assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS. in the British Museum First Published in 1910
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/132/132.txt
29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in itsnatural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and tostrike at what is weak. [Like water, taking the line of least resistance.] 31. Water shapes its course according to the nature of theground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory inrelation to the foe whom he is facing.32. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, soin warfare there are no constant conditions.33. He who can modify his tactics in relation to hisopponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.34. The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) arenot always equally predominant; [That is, as Wang Hsi says: "they predominatealternately."]the four seasons make way for each other in turn. [Literally, "have no invariable seat."]There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waningand waxing.
It is so simple and yet with every group of people I speak to, they seem to miss it.
The one who would overcome the other does not force their way but uses the weaknesses of the other to succeed. It allows reality. It uses reality. It does not fight it.
My son has been having some difficulty at school.
He finds so much of what he has to do in class to be virtually pointless. He says, “It’s stupid. I don’t need to do it. I won’t do it. I can’t do it.”
I tell him he is fighting what is.
He thinks that by refusing to do it and then being very difficult about it – arguing, crying, ignoring, avoiding - he wins. His teacher gives up. His mother gives up. His father gives up and then he doesn’t have to do it.
He sees the battle as victorious but he loses sight of the war.
Last night I accepted Sun Tzu’s, Lao Tzu’s and Chang Tzu’s words.
I said, “Ok. Don’t do it. I guess you get to do grade three twice. They won’t let you out of grade three if you can’t do these things. I am finished fighting with you. I just want us both to be happy.”
I walked away and he began to work.
Water flows downhill and power is about needs.
Sun Tzu – The Art of War – Chapter VITranslated from the Chinese with Introduction and Critical Notes BY LIONEL GILES, M.A. Assistant in the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS. in the British Museum First Published in 1910
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/132/132.txt
29. Military tactics are like unto water; for water in itsnatural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.30. So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and tostrike at what is weak. [Like water, taking the line of least resistance.] 31. Water shapes its course according to the nature of theground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory inrelation to the foe whom he is facing.32. Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, soin warfare there are no constant conditions.33. He who can modify his tactics in relation to hisopponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.34. The five elements (water, fire, wood, metal, earth) arenot always equally predominant; [That is, as Wang Hsi says: "they predominatealternately."]the four seasons make way for each other in turn. [Literally, "have no invariable seat."]There are short days and long; the moon has its periods of waningand waxing.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Things the Tao taught me....
Everyday people seek power.
I don’t know why.
They want the ability to control others. They want the ability to ensure they get what they want. They like the feeling of dominating others - even if they are strangers.
They see it as control. They pursue the mastery of the world around them.
If they ever become good at power they learn that the best way to have it is to control their own self enough to be able to access the needs of others. It is in controlling their response to others needs and desires that they create power.
Eventually, power fails. It always has a limit. Power seekers run head-long into the limit and then, lying the ruin of their plans, they wonder why.
Why?
Because control is an illusion.
The only thing they really controlled was how they responded to the situation before them.
Mastery of the world comes not from an ever growing realm of control. It comes from the absolute ability to control the self.
Not only is that the place of true power, it is also the beginning of true freedom.
Later…
I don’t know why.
They want the ability to control others. They want the ability to ensure they get what they want. They like the feeling of dominating others - even if they are strangers.
They see it as control. They pursue the mastery of the world around them.
If they ever become good at power they learn that the best way to have it is to control their own self enough to be able to access the needs of others. It is in controlling their response to others needs and desires that they create power.
Eventually, power fails. It always has a limit. Power seekers run head-long into the limit and then, lying the ruin of their plans, they wonder why.
Why?
Because control is an illusion.
The only thing they really controlled was how they responded to the situation before them.
Mastery of the world comes not from an ever growing realm of control. It comes from the absolute ability to control the self.
Not only is that the place of true power, it is also the beginning of true freedom.
Later…
Monday, February 19, 2007
Fear
Like anger and excitement, I have suggested that fear is an emotional feeling of power. If you are feeling afraid then someone is using power over you.
Simply you have a need and someone has the ability to either help you with that need or inhibit your ability to satisfy that need. The need is the thing that has the fear in it. It is the thing that holds the power. It is not the ability that holds the power.
Historically and somewhat naturally we think that the power is in the ability to affect the need. But if the need is small enough then there is little power to trigger.
Identifying power with a thing, or ability to use a thing, is one of those misdirecting myths about power.
I get a regular newsletter from Denny Hatch - a direct marketing/PR writer and speaker. He gives examples of good or bad marketing and offers explanation and analysis.
Like so many newsletters and emails we get they are about promoting the interests of the sender. The idea is to show you how that vendor can solve your need, or has insight that you don’t have. It plays on your need and offers an ability to solve it.
That is what marketing is – deliberate attempts at power. The deliberate attempt to stimulate the motivating power in your needs by offering an ability and thus controlling or influencing a choice.
It’s a kind of poetic layering that Denny uses his often insightful analysis of others attempts at power as a platform to use his power and thus impact choice.
Add to that the layers of power you can find in the actual story. Using a recent newspaper article, he tells us about people who use fear in their marketing - because it works.
I know when these kinds of ads and PR techniques are used, regardless of customer response, the result always includes an element of mistrust.
Power destroys trust. When someone uses your fear to get you to do what they want you to do - although you may be willing to do it to alleviate your fear - in the end, you don’t really like the person who influenced you that way.
Yes it works. Power works from time to time. Big surprise…
But now I ask you – how do you feel about it?
Below is the copy of Denny’s newsletter from last week.
Enjoy the power analysis.
Moves to Vaccinate Girls for Cervical Cancer Draw FireAs Merck Lobbies States To Require Shots,Some Fret Over Side Effects, MoralsBills being drafted in some 20 U.S. states that would make a cervical-cancer vaccine mandatory for preteen girls are sparking a backlash among parents and consumer advocates.—John Carreyrou, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7, 2007
February 13, 2007:
Vol. 3, Issue No. 12
Fear: The Most Powerful Emotion on the Planet How to Put Fear to Work in Your Marketing Efforts
In 2005, Merck & Co.—the huge pharmaceutical conglomerate—was poised to get FDA approval for Gardasil, a supposedly foolproof vaccine against cervical cancer.In June 2006, the influential government Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), recommended that shots be given to all pre-teen girls starting as young as nine at the discretion of their doctors.Merck operatives and lobbyists blitzed state legislators with the news.
Their message of fear: Unless you make Gardasil a requirement for entrance into junior high and high schools, girls in your state could die of cervical cancer. So far, fearful lawmakers in 20 states are drafting bills that make the vaccine mandatory.If the bills become law, the three shots of vaccine—totaling $360 per child— will represent billions of dollars for Merck.
Fear works.Fear Begets Fear-1Many parents are fearful of their daughters being forcefully vaccinated. As John Carreyrou wrote in The Wall Street Journal:Tina Walker, the mother of an 11-year-old girl in Flower Mound, Texas, says she would prefer to wait until the vaccine has been on the market for several years before subjecting her child to it.
“We are the guinea pigs here,” she says.Tina Walker is spot-on. No one knows the long-term effects of this vaccine. The Wall Street Journal reported that so far “82 adverse events” have occurred as a result of Gardasil injections.
How hungry is Merck for this business? One of its lobbyists in Texas is the former chief of staff for Governor Rick Perry and Merck’s political action committee donated $6,000 to Perry’s re-election campaign. This past week, Governor Perry issued an executive order mandating that every female child entering the sixth grade must be vaccinated with Gardasil starting in 2008.
Currently, Merck is being sued by 1,400 patients—and families of the deceased— for failing to reveal that the long-term use of its drug, Vioxx, could result in heart problems and death.
Presumably it is desperate for the Gardasil windfall in order to pay off the projected billions in Vioxx judgments.Fear Begets Fear-2Vaccines for chicken pox, polio and measles are widely accepted. No parent wants a child in school exposed to one of these highly contagious diseases.But cervical cancer? You do not contract it from a crowd or in a swimming pool. It is sexually transmitted.
A number of conservative organizations have come out against mandatory vaccination because they fear that it will encourage sexual promiscuity among girls and young women. It seems to me that the behavior of daughters is private family business and not any concern of busybody butt-in-skies across town or around the country. But then I have never had kids, so what do I know?
Interestingly, on February 5, Reuters reported on a Common Sense Media survey of 1,138 parents across the United States which concluded that 57 percent of parents were fearful of their kids being exposed to the media versus 45 percent that said they were more concerned about sex or alcohol abuse.This story will not receive widespread coverage because the media are fearful of publicity generated by parental criticism and the possibility of advertising boycotts.
In combing through 20 newspapers and Web sites a day, and downloading dozens of stories, I cannot help but notice widespread fear throughout our society. A sampling from just this past week:* Pinch Fears—and Fires—Morgan Stanley.
The New York Times publisher, Arthur (Pinch) Sulzberger, Jr. axed Morgan Stanley because of fear that the family money manager, Hassan Elmasry, will be successful in his campaign to change the corporate share structure in order to wrest tight control of the company from the Sulzberger family.*
Lisa Nowak Fears Colleen Shipman Would Steal Her ManIn one of the most bizarre—and sad—stories of the week, Astronaut Lisa Nowak packed a BB gun, pepper spray, plastic gloves, garbage bags, and donned a wig and diapers (so she would not have to take a bathroom break) to drive 900 miles from Houston to Orlando. Her objective was to confront Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman about her relationship with another astronaut. That an Annapolis graduate and former test pilot who had risen to the rank of captain did not come to her senses somewhere in the eighth or ninth hour of her drive and say to herself, “What in the hell am I doing!” is a testament to the power of fear.*
Oil Companies Fear Global Warming Report. The British Newspaper, The Guardian, reported that the American Enterprise Institute—a conservative Washington think tank funded by ExxonMobil—offered scientists and economists $10,000 each for articles that would undermine a major report on climate change issued by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.*
Queen Fears Backlash of Prince Charles “going green.” The Daily Mail reported that Her Majesty fears that the Prince of Wales is embarrassing other members of the royal family with his environmental stance and speech in New York that climate change was a “war” that must be won. “It is feared the knock-on effects of the criticism may restrict the royals’ ability to act as ambassadors abroad,” said The Daily Mail. “Some senior sources fear the situation may lead to splits in the royal family itself.” *
Voters Fear Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. “Mormon Candidate Braces for Religion as an Issue,” was the headline of a New York Times feature this past February 8. “Mr. Romney’s advisers acknowledged that popular misconceptions about Mormonism—as well as questions about whether Mormons are beholden to their church’s leaders on public policy—could give his opponents ammunition in the wide-open fight among Republicans to become the consensus candidate of social conservatives,” wrote Adam Nagourney and Laurie Goodstein.
One Industry Entirely Based on Fear: InsuranceAll insurance is purchased out of fear—fear of financial ruin. Health, homeowner, long-term care, automobile, flood, travel, liability—all are policies for which people pay dearly. And both insurers and insureds have one single, fervent hope: no claims.Yet insurance marketers have the most screwed-up vocabulary of any industry, because they do not understand the difference between features and benefits. For example, a 10-year term life insurance policy might offer the following “benefits:”* Provide a death benefit to the designated beneficiary of $1 million.*
Provide Accidental Death and Dismemberment benefit equal to the amount of Basic Group Life Insurance.* Offers an accelerated death benefit, which allows terminally ill employees the opportunity to collect all or part of their life insurance prior to death.* No physical exam is required.* Your acceptance is based on your answers to just three simple health questions.* Once enrolled, benefits are payable from the very first day coverage takes effect.* There is no waiting period before full benefits are available.* You can never be singled out for a rate increase.*
Etc., etc., etc.
In any other industry, these would be features. Only insurance marketers call them benefits.How would a direct marketer use fear to sell insurance?“Go for points of maximum anxiety,” counsels the great copywriter Bill Bonner who presides over the multimillion-dollar Agora Publishing.
In other words, get inside the heads of the people to whom you are writing, figure out what keeps them awake at three in the morning and feed on those fears. For example, chances are that they are wildly overextended financially and if anything happened to the breadwinner, the family would be evicted from their home and forced on to public assistance.The benefits of having a $1 million term life policy: You can sleep soundly knowing that if the unthinkable happened, the mortgage would be paid and your family will be taken care of. They will remember you with love for your foresight and for the protection you gave them rather than with contempt for putting them out on the street.The actual features of the policy are incidental to the sale.
Another Industry Based on Fear: Politics
Who can forget the gaffe that may have cost John Kerry the presidency when he said the following about the senate vote on the Iraq War, “I voted for it before I voted against it.” The Republicans replayed that line over and over again with lethal effect, scaring the voters into believing Kerry was a flip-flopper and therefore a danger. When Kerry refused to immediately dispute the Swift Boaters’ charges that his Vietnam medals were not earned, voters perceived that maybe those allegations were true and feared that Kerry was a liar and a coward that could not be trusted to support our troops in Iraq. The 2004 presidential election was won on voter fear of John Kerry.
Hillary Clinton is in for the same treatment—the result of the 20-second gaffe at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in Washington early in February—that I mentioned in last week’s edition of this e-zine.
Here is the fear-based, 30-second spot I would run were I managing the campaign of Barack Obama or Rudolph Giuliani:
[SIGN ACROSS TOP OF SCREEN THROUGHOUT THE 30-SECOND SPOT]Should Hillary Clinton Be President?
[ON SMALL TV SCREEN INSET, SENATOR CLINTON SPEAKS TO DNC. USE THE JERKY, PRIMITIVE YouTube.com VERSION TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION IT WAS A HIDDEN CAMERA CAPTURING AN OFF-THE-RECORD SPEECH]The other day, the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund … [SOUND FADES TO SILENCE][ON SCREEN, WE SEE CLINTON CONTINUING TO SPEAK. NO SOUND]
[GIULIANI VOICE OVER]In June 2005, the Supreme Court said that the government could seize your home and turn it into condos in order to raise more tax money.Now Hillary Clinton wants to seize business profits. What will Hillary try to seize next? Your investments? Your savings? Your bank account? Your salary? This is more than scary. It’s un-American.I’m Rudy Giuliani and I approved this message.[LOGO]GIULIANI IN ‘08 In short, if you can scare the wits out of people and then offer salvation, you are on your way to a successful promotional effort.
Takeaway Points to Consider:
* “Probably well over half of our buying choices are based on emotion.”—Jack Maxson, freelancer*
“Go for points of maximum anxiety.”—Bill Bonner*
The seven key copy drivers—the emotional hot buttons that cause people to act: Fear—Greed—Guilt—Anger—Exclusivity—Salvation—Flattery.* Of these, the most powerful is fear.*
“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”—Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)*
“I am always living with fear.”—Placido Domingo (b. 1941)*
“The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear—fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.” —H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)*
“Fear makes us feel our humanity.”—Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)*
“When I was 10 years old, I lived with fear of the atom bomb. It would keep me awake nights and make me wake up screaming. We all carried that with us.”—Cass Elliot (1941-1974)*
“Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.”—Aristotle (384-322 BCE)*
“We manage the fear, I manage the fear, but it certainly takes its toll, the strain does.”—Christiane Amanpour (b. 1958)
Web Sites Related to Today's Edition:
Merck’s Gardasil Press Releasehttp://tinyurl.com/yvd8pq
Bill Bonner’s Agora Publishinghttp://www.agora-inc.com
Simply you have a need and someone has the ability to either help you with that need or inhibit your ability to satisfy that need. The need is the thing that has the fear in it. It is the thing that holds the power. It is not the ability that holds the power.
Historically and somewhat naturally we think that the power is in the ability to affect the need. But if the need is small enough then there is little power to trigger.
Identifying power with a thing, or ability to use a thing, is one of those misdirecting myths about power.
I get a regular newsletter from Denny Hatch - a direct marketing/PR writer and speaker. He gives examples of good or bad marketing and offers explanation and analysis.
Like so many newsletters and emails we get they are about promoting the interests of the sender. The idea is to show you how that vendor can solve your need, or has insight that you don’t have. It plays on your need and offers an ability to solve it.
That is what marketing is – deliberate attempts at power. The deliberate attempt to stimulate the motivating power in your needs by offering an ability and thus controlling or influencing a choice.
It’s a kind of poetic layering that Denny uses his often insightful analysis of others attempts at power as a platform to use his power and thus impact choice.
Add to that the layers of power you can find in the actual story. Using a recent newspaper article, he tells us about people who use fear in their marketing - because it works.
I know when these kinds of ads and PR techniques are used, regardless of customer response, the result always includes an element of mistrust.
Power destroys trust. When someone uses your fear to get you to do what they want you to do - although you may be willing to do it to alleviate your fear - in the end, you don’t really like the person who influenced you that way.
Yes it works. Power works from time to time. Big surprise…
But now I ask you – how do you feel about it?
Below is the copy of Denny’s newsletter from last week.
Enjoy the power analysis.
Moves to Vaccinate Girls for Cervical Cancer Draw FireAs Merck Lobbies States To Require Shots,Some Fret Over Side Effects, MoralsBills being drafted in some 20 U.S. states that would make a cervical-cancer vaccine mandatory for preteen girls are sparking a backlash among parents and consumer advocates.—John Carreyrou, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7, 2007
February 13, 2007:
Vol. 3, Issue No. 12
Fear: The Most Powerful Emotion on the Planet How to Put Fear to Work in Your Marketing Efforts
In 2005, Merck & Co.—the huge pharmaceutical conglomerate—was poised to get FDA approval for Gardasil, a supposedly foolproof vaccine against cervical cancer.In June 2006, the influential government Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), recommended that shots be given to all pre-teen girls starting as young as nine at the discretion of their doctors.Merck operatives and lobbyists blitzed state legislators with the news.
Their message of fear: Unless you make Gardasil a requirement for entrance into junior high and high schools, girls in your state could die of cervical cancer. So far, fearful lawmakers in 20 states are drafting bills that make the vaccine mandatory.If the bills become law, the three shots of vaccine—totaling $360 per child— will represent billions of dollars for Merck.
Fear works.Fear Begets Fear-1Many parents are fearful of their daughters being forcefully vaccinated. As John Carreyrou wrote in The Wall Street Journal:Tina Walker, the mother of an 11-year-old girl in Flower Mound, Texas, says she would prefer to wait until the vaccine has been on the market for several years before subjecting her child to it.
“We are the guinea pigs here,” she says.Tina Walker is spot-on. No one knows the long-term effects of this vaccine. The Wall Street Journal reported that so far “82 adverse events” have occurred as a result of Gardasil injections.
How hungry is Merck for this business? One of its lobbyists in Texas is the former chief of staff for Governor Rick Perry and Merck’s political action committee donated $6,000 to Perry’s re-election campaign. This past week, Governor Perry issued an executive order mandating that every female child entering the sixth grade must be vaccinated with Gardasil starting in 2008.
Currently, Merck is being sued by 1,400 patients—and families of the deceased— for failing to reveal that the long-term use of its drug, Vioxx, could result in heart problems and death.
Presumably it is desperate for the Gardasil windfall in order to pay off the projected billions in Vioxx judgments.Fear Begets Fear-2Vaccines for chicken pox, polio and measles are widely accepted. No parent wants a child in school exposed to one of these highly contagious diseases.But cervical cancer? You do not contract it from a crowd or in a swimming pool. It is sexually transmitted.
A number of conservative organizations have come out against mandatory vaccination because they fear that it will encourage sexual promiscuity among girls and young women. It seems to me that the behavior of daughters is private family business and not any concern of busybody butt-in-skies across town or around the country. But then I have never had kids, so what do I know?
Interestingly, on February 5, Reuters reported on a Common Sense Media survey of 1,138 parents across the United States which concluded that 57 percent of parents were fearful of their kids being exposed to the media versus 45 percent that said they were more concerned about sex or alcohol abuse.This story will not receive widespread coverage because the media are fearful of publicity generated by parental criticism and the possibility of advertising boycotts.
In combing through 20 newspapers and Web sites a day, and downloading dozens of stories, I cannot help but notice widespread fear throughout our society. A sampling from just this past week:* Pinch Fears—and Fires—Morgan Stanley.
The New York Times publisher, Arthur (Pinch) Sulzberger, Jr. axed Morgan Stanley because of fear that the family money manager, Hassan Elmasry, will be successful in his campaign to change the corporate share structure in order to wrest tight control of the company from the Sulzberger family.*
Lisa Nowak Fears Colleen Shipman Would Steal Her ManIn one of the most bizarre—and sad—stories of the week, Astronaut Lisa Nowak packed a BB gun, pepper spray, plastic gloves, garbage bags, and donned a wig and diapers (so she would not have to take a bathroom break) to drive 900 miles from Houston to Orlando. Her objective was to confront Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman about her relationship with another astronaut. That an Annapolis graduate and former test pilot who had risen to the rank of captain did not come to her senses somewhere in the eighth or ninth hour of her drive and say to herself, “What in the hell am I doing!” is a testament to the power of fear.*
Oil Companies Fear Global Warming Report. The British Newspaper, The Guardian, reported that the American Enterprise Institute—a conservative Washington think tank funded by ExxonMobil—offered scientists and economists $10,000 each for articles that would undermine a major report on climate change issued by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.*
Queen Fears Backlash of Prince Charles “going green.” The Daily Mail reported that Her Majesty fears that the Prince of Wales is embarrassing other members of the royal family with his environmental stance and speech in New York that climate change was a “war” that must be won. “It is feared the knock-on effects of the criticism may restrict the royals’ ability to act as ambassadors abroad,” said The Daily Mail. “Some senior sources fear the situation may lead to splits in the royal family itself.” *
Voters Fear Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. “Mormon Candidate Braces for Religion as an Issue,” was the headline of a New York Times feature this past February 8. “Mr. Romney’s advisers acknowledged that popular misconceptions about Mormonism—as well as questions about whether Mormons are beholden to their church’s leaders on public policy—could give his opponents ammunition in the wide-open fight among Republicans to become the consensus candidate of social conservatives,” wrote Adam Nagourney and Laurie Goodstein.
One Industry Entirely Based on Fear: InsuranceAll insurance is purchased out of fear—fear of financial ruin. Health, homeowner, long-term care, automobile, flood, travel, liability—all are policies for which people pay dearly. And both insurers and insureds have one single, fervent hope: no claims.Yet insurance marketers have the most screwed-up vocabulary of any industry, because they do not understand the difference between features and benefits. For example, a 10-year term life insurance policy might offer the following “benefits:”* Provide a death benefit to the designated beneficiary of $1 million.*
Provide Accidental Death and Dismemberment benefit equal to the amount of Basic Group Life Insurance.* Offers an accelerated death benefit, which allows terminally ill employees the opportunity to collect all or part of their life insurance prior to death.* No physical exam is required.* Your acceptance is based on your answers to just three simple health questions.* Once enrolled, benefits are payable from the very first day coverage takes effect.* There is no waiting period before full benefits are available.* You can never be singled out for a rate increase.*
Etc., etc., etc.
In any other industry, these would be features. Only insurance marketers call them benefits.How would a direct marketer use fear to sell insurance?“Go for points of maximum anxiety,” counsels the great copywriter Bill Bonner who presides over the multimillion-dollar Agora Publishing.
In other words, get inside the heads of the people to whom you are writing, figure out what keeps them awake at three in the morning and feed on those fears. For example, chances are that they are wildly overextended financially and if anything happened to the breadwinner, the family would be evicted from their home and forced on to public assistance.The benefits of having a $1 million term life policy: You can sleep soundly knowing that if the unthinkable happened, the mortgage would be paid and your family will be taken care of. They will remember you with love for your foresight and for the protection you gave them rather than with contempt for putting them out on the street.The actual features of the policy are incidental to the sale.
Another Industry Based on Fear: Politics
Who can forget the gaffe that may have cost John Kerry the presidency when he said the following about the senate vote on the Iraq War, “I voted for it before I voted against it.” The Republicans replayed that line over and over again with lethal effect, scaring the voters into believing Kerry was a flip-flopper and therefore a danger. When Kerry refused to immediately dispute the Swift Boaters’ charges that his Vietnam medals were not earned, voters perceived that maybe those allegations were true and feared that Kerry was a liar and a coward that could not be trusted to support our troops in Iraq. The 2004 presidential election was won on voter fear of John Kerry.
Hillary Clinton is in for the same treatment—the result of the 20-second gaffe at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in Washington early in February—that I mentioned in last week’s edition of this e-zine.
Here is the fear-based, 30-second spot I would run were I managing the campaign of Barack Obama or Rudolph Giuliani:
[SIGN ACROSS TOP OF SCREEN THROUGHOUT THE 30-SECOND SPOT]Should Hillary Clinton Be President?
[ON SMALL TV SCREEN INSET, SENATOR CLINTON SPEAKS TO DNC. USE THE JERKY, PRIMITIVE YouTube.com VERSION TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION IT WAS A HIDDEN CAMERA CAPTURING AN OFF-THE-RECORD SPEECH]The other day, the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund … [SOUND FADES TO SILENCE][ON SCREEN, WE SEE CLINTON CONTINUING TO SPEAK. NO SOUND]
[GIULIANI VOICE OVER]In June 2005, the Supreme Court said that the government could seize your home and turn it into condos in order to raise more tax money.Now Hillary Clinton wants to seize business profits. What will Hillary try to seize next? Your investments? Your savings? Your bank account? Your salary? This is more than scary. It’s un-American.I’m Rudy Giuliani and I approved this message.[LOGO]GIULIANI IN ‘08 In short, if you can scare the wits out of people and then offer salvation, you are on your way to a successful promotional effort.
Takeaway Points to Consider:
* “Probably well over half of our buying choices are based on emotion.”—Jack Maxson, freelancer*
“Go for points of maximum anxiety.”—Bill Bonner*
The seven key copy drivers—the emotional hot buttons that cause people to act: Fear—Greed—Guilt—Anger—Exclusivity—Salvation—Flattery.* Of these, the most powerful is fear.*
“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.”—Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)*
“I am always living with fear.”—Placido Domingo (b. 1941)*
“The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear—fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.” —H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)*
“Fear makes us feel our humanity.”—Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)*
“When I was 10 years old, I lived with fear of the atom bomb. It would keep me awake nights and make me wake up screaming. We all carried that with us.”—Cass Elliot (1941-1974)*
“Men are swayed more by fear than by reverence.”—Aristotle (384-322 BCE)*
“We manage the fear, I manage the fear, but it certainly takes its toll, the strain does.”—Christiane Amanpour (b. 1958)
Web Sites Related to Today's Edition:
Merck’s Gardasil Press Releasehttp://tinyurl.com/yvd8pq
Bill Bonner’s Agora Publishinghttp://www.agora-inc.com
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The dimensions of power
I was asked at the Brantford speak if it is possible that we use power unintentionally? And of so is it still power?
From a simply technical point of view the answer is simple – if you are using an ability that triggers someone’s need and it impacts a choice they are making - then that is power.
There is a great deal of discussion about this in the modern sociological world of power. In fact it seems to be the most popular topic with sociologists who study power.
A leader in the study of that question, Dr. Steven Lukes, has recently re-released his book - Power: A Radical View, Second Edition. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. It is best described in a review by Sociologist Daniel Béland of the University of Calgary, as follows:
Using the post-war debate over "power elite" (Mills) and "pluralism" (Dahl) as a starting point, the 1974 essay — reprinted without major modifications — explores the three dimensions of power. Associated with the work of Robert Dahl, the first dimension is related to "the study of concrete, observable behavior" (17, emphasis in original). From this angle, what matters is the analysis of observable conflicts between organized interests over concrete political issues. The second dimension of power is underlined as the result of political scientists Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz's critique of Dahl's pluralism. This critique points to the forces that prevent potentially controversial issues from generating "observable conflicts." Consequently, in order to grasp this second dimension of power, "it is crucially important to identify potential issues which nondecision-making prevents from being actual" (23). Beyond the analysis of observable conflicts, political analysis is about studying hidden forces that constrain the agenda. Thus, according to Lukes, power has a third dimension, which is ideological in nature: "Is it not the supreme and most insidious exercise of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial?"
I believe that there is no question that power is sometimes used so effectively that no one knows it is at work. This is commonly experienced everywhere from the classroom to the sports channel. However the real issue for my friend I think is whether or not this is actually power? Does there have to be a conflict? Does power have to be intentional?
I think the first question is how you define power. If power is about the results – like it is with most sociologists then whether or not you see a response determines whether or not there is power. I think all it shows is whether or not there is sufficient power to create a measurable phenomenon.
If however you define power by its method – the application of an ability to a need, then we see intention has nothing to do with it.
The study of power is ageless. However in a modern context we have had scientific rules to honor. Originally we saw power as a question of “power over” another and the idea of dominance. We study and measure the effects of power. Again all we were focused on was the “other” and their will using the subject only as a meter or measuring device. The implication was the need for the choice to be made against the will of another.
Then it was a question of “power to.” We asked if it was possible to define the questions so as to have impact on the answers. Again the target was conflict and the ability to control the outcome by controlling the question.
Finally Lukes asked if it was possible to have power that is not detected as power and hence define the reality within which the question is asked – not just the question itself.
But all of this study has an underlying assumption – the actor intends to influence the outcome. None of this study answers my friend’s question.
I see his point. He is a large man. He would get accused of bullying because he is big. He has a booming voice. He gets accused of bullying because he is loud. He is accused of using power when that is not his intention.
I think the second more important question is what is the role of intention within a power dynamic?
I have always made it clear that I believe that life is lived in a series of choices. Choice is the increment of living. We go from choice to choice, acting on those deliberate and often non-deliberate decisions. The whole purpose of power is to impact those choices. Certainly when choices are made without the consideration of the whole gambit of possibilities, then there is a “Lukes” type, or layer, of power which is at work and goes unrecognized and therefore unaddressed.
When we participate in that “system” of power I suppose we have no intention and the goal of the power dynamic propagates itself.
Using power without intending to use it is still power because it is essential to see it as a method of acting on the subject not as a characteristic of the actor.
I don’t know if I have an answer for you.
However I think the question of intention is still the most important question we can ask.
It seems that few of us live a deliberate life. We act on memory and habit and seldom question the nature of our lifestyle and its purposes. We are so good at power we don’t even have to try to use it. We just do.
The significant question isn’t whether or not it is still power if/when we are not intending to use it? The question is whether or not this is a true life if we are not deliberately living it?
When it comes to intention, power is just one of those things we do without intention.
Intention - that is a whole new ballgame. Power is about forming intention. It is about controlling intention. It is another dynamic that has to be recognized and overcome.
Choice never goes away - whether or not we make one.
From a simply technical point of view the answer is simple – if you are using an ability that triggers someone’s need and it impacts a choice they are making - then that is power.
There is a great deal of discussion about this in the modern sociological world of power. In fact it seems to be the most popular topic with sociologists who study power.
A leader in the study of that question, Dr. Steven Lukes, has recently re-released his book - Power: A Radical View, Second Edition. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. It is best described in a review by Sociologist Daniel Béland of the University of Calgary, as follows:
Using the post-war debate over "power elite" (Mills) and "pluralism" (Dahl) as a starting point, the 1974 essay — reprinted without major modifications — explores the three dimensions of power. Associated with the work of Robert Dahl, the first dimension is related to "the study of concrete, observable behavior" (17, emphasis in original). From this angle, what matters is the analysis of observable conflicts between organized interests over concrete political issues. The second dimension of power is underlined as the result of political scientists Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz's critique of Dahl's pluralism. This critique points to the forces that prevent potentially controversial issues from generating "observable conflicts." Consequently, in order to grasp this second dimension of power, "it is crucially important to identify potential issues which nondecision-making prevents from being actual" (23). Beyond the analysis of observable conflicts, political analysis is about studying hidden forces that constrain the agenda. Thus, according to Lukes, power has a third dimension, which is ideological in nature: "Is it not the supreme and most insidious exercise of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial?"
I believe that there is no question that power is sometimes used so effectively that no one knows it is at work. This is commonly experienced everywhere from the classroom to the sports channel. However the real issue for my friend I think is whether or not this is actually power? Does there have to be a conflict? Does power have to be intentional?
I think the first question is how you define power. If power is about the results – like it is with most sociologists then whether or not you see a response determines whether or not there is power. I think all it shows is whether or not there is sufficient power to create a measurable phenomenon.
If however you define power by its method – the application of an ability to a need, then we see intention has nothing to do with it.
The study of power is ageless. However in a modern context we have had scientific rules to honor. Originally we saw power as a question of “power over” another and the idea of dominance. We study and measure the effects of power. Again all we were focused on was the “other” and their will using the subject only as a meter or measuring device. The implication was the need for the choice to be made against the will of another.
Then it was a question of “power to.” We asked if it was possible to define the questions so as to have impact on the answers. Again the target was conflict and the ability to control the outcome by controlling the question.
Finally Lukes asked if it was possible to have power that is not detected as power and hence define the reality within which the question is asked – not just the question itself.
But all of this study has an underlying assumption – the actor intends to influence the outcome. None of this study answers my friend’s question.
I see his point. He is a large man. He would get accused of bullying because he is big. He has a booming voice. He gets accused of bullying because he is loud. He is accused of using power when that is not his intention.
I think the second more important question is what is the role of intention within a power dynamic?
I have always made it clear that I believe that life is lived in a series of choices. Choice is the increment of living. We go from choice to choice, acting on those deliberate and often non-deliberate decisions. The whole purpose of power is to impact those choices. Certainly when choices are made without the consideration of the whole gambit of possibilities, then there is a “Lukes” type, or layer, of power which is at work and goes unrecognized and therefore unaddressed.
When we participate in that “system” of power I suppose we have no intention and the goal of the power dynamic propagates itself.
Using power without intending to use it is still power because it is essential to see it as a method of acting on the subject not as a characteristic of the actor.
I don’t know if I have an answer for you.
However I think the question of intention is still the most important question we can ask.
It seems that few of us live a deliberate life. We act on memory and habit and seldom question the nature of our lifestyle and its purposes. We are so good at power we don’t even have to try to use it. We just do.
The significant question isn’t whether or not it is still power if/when we are not intending to use it? The question is whether or not this is a true life if we are not deliberately living it?
When it comes to intention, power is just one of those things we do without intention.
Intention - that is a whole new ballgame. Power is about forming intention. It is about controlling intention. It is another dynamic that has to be recognized and overcome.
Choice never goes away - whether or not we make one.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Brantford Speak
I thoroughly enjoyed my day in Brantford last Tuesday.
The idea was to connect the insights into power to the conduct of business. Truth be known, marketing is one of the things that has taught me a lot about power. As much as my practice of law has.
Power is about choice. That is its purpose – to impact choices. Business is about getting people to choose our product over the competition’s offerings. The connection is obvious.
Nonetheless I was pleasantly surprised to see the flashes of enlightenment on the faces in the group. It is a subtle and almost trite revelation that the source of power is need. Most people would pause and say “Yes, and so…?” However as much as it is seems a small leap of logic to connect power and need, when people finally recognize that little nexus, they automatically start thinking of the implications. Those implications lead them to a thousand questions.
The questions are what I enjoy the most when we chat afterward.
If you have questions or thoughts – post them here.
I am thankful for the opportunity to come out and speak. If you would like a speaker for your events, let me know. We can customize these ideas in countless ways because power exists in countless forms.
Thanks
The idea was to connect the insights into power to the conduct of business. Truth be known, marketing is one of the things that has taught me a lot about power. As much as my practice of law has.
Power is about choice. That is its purpose – to impact choices. Business is about getting people to choose our product over the competition’s offerings. The connection is obvious.
Nonetheless I was pleasantly surprised to see the flashes of enlightenment on the faces in the group. It is a subtle and almost trite revelation that the source of power is need. Most people would pause and say “Yes, and so…?” However as much as it is seems a small leap of logic to connect power and need, when people finally recognize that little nexus, they automatically start thinking of the implications. Those implications lead them to a thousand questions.
The questions are what I enjoy the most when we chat afterward.
If you have questions or thoughts – post them here.
I am thankful for the opportunity to come out and speak. If you would like a speaker for your events, let me know. We can customize these ideas in countless ways because power exists in countless forms.
Thanks
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Hey Gunther
A long time ago Gunther asked about compassion.
I didn't answer him. I have been away. But on a Sunday morning and afternoon many thoughts came together and I offer this not as an answer so much as just a thought.
Gunther asked,
Is compassion really the opposite of power? Can't it be used for power? Compassion is a powerful thing that we can use as a mechanism to influence people. Then is compassion really the opposite of power?
There are those who are powerful because they use what others need to effect their choices.
There are those who appear powerful because they are what others want to be. They give of themselves in a way that creates admiration and a desire to emulate and therefore motivate behavior in a positive way. The difference is intention.
Can using compassion be a mechanism?–A means toward having power. Yes. But it is a question of intention and application not one of automatic power and choice manipulation. If someone needs compassion we can use it as a means of producing power.
Or we can just give it without a demand for a choice that serves us. If we offer compassion without any desire attached to it – it is simply compassion. If we offer affection, understanding and comfort only because we know we can use it to get what we desire – then the intention is not compassion. It is power. Compassion and power are intentions as much as they are phenomena. They are not just the result - they are the purpose. They are not just manifestations they are intentions.
Does that mean power has to be intentional to be power? No. But intending a result isn't always intending power. And if the result is not a compassionate thing, then it must be insome form Power. If the intended result may not be power but if it isn't based in a love of all for the good of ALL then it is power and needs were used to attain a result.
Power.
We use power to build up the self. It is the belief that we are unique and separate individuals who are in competition with all the other individuals in the quest to fulfill our desires. It is the belief that our life purpose is to fulfill desires and all others in the world are here to assist in that pursuit. Others are nothing more than tools for our use.
In truth we are all manifestations or expressions of the great consciousness that flows within and is the essence of all. We are all one. We are all expressions of life that are interconnected and interdependent and are ALL on the path back to that great source.
We are all walking the path. Everyone’s success in that journey is everyone else’s. We, as one great wave of life, are here - free to play within this world of expression.
But we are mislead by the distinctions between things. Those distinctions are creations of the mind and illusions. The distinctions between us are not real. We are al the same and all connected.
Each of us is so reliant on all the others. Each must – and does - support and provide for all the others. It is so obvious we miss it. Where does the matter that makes up our being come from? It comes from the rest of the earth and the living things within it. Soil, rain, worms, sun, animals, other humans. Fire, earth, water, air, chi. The cycle of water. The cycle of matter. The cycle of life. Flowing from one entity into the next. Changing from one form into another.
It is as obvious as our birth. One human being comes out of another. We are all connected and cannot exist without each other. Yet we are convinced that we are in competition and racing for the chance to control each other so we might have what we want.
There is nothing on the earth we can’t have. Each of us can have everything. This is a world of plenty and we are beasts of great ability and talent. Yet we are fixated not on what we want, but on what others want. Our success is not measured in having everything we want but in having more than others have.
We do not want to be great. We want to be better.
We don't want to be happy. We want to be happier.
We are fixated on the others. We want to control them and defeat them and to ultimately have so much more than they do.
This human desire to control others and be better than others is what has fascinated me for decades now. That is why I am so obsessed with power.
I don’t want to control others. My God, what kind of responsibility would that entail? I am afraid of even influencing others with my writing. What if I am wrong? What if all I do is show people how to go around and control each other? That's not why I am writing this stuff.
That’s why I am afraid of publishing these ideas. I am afraid of the responsibility attached to influencing people.
I simply want to help us all release from this painful pursuit of this false sense of self.
I am so completely shocked at people's need to to control other people.
That has been my focus. That is why I want to understand power and explain it. That is why I want all of us to be able to see through it and over come it. That is why I want to explain it so all could have it. Once we are all as power as each other, then there is nothing left but an acceptance that we must all survive or we must all die.
I don't want people to use compassion because it is powerful. I just want them to stop wanting to control others.
All that is left is compassion.
Yes little brother, compassion - like anything that some wants or needs - can be used as a mechanism of power. Anything can be a mechanism of power. It is all a question of intention.
I didn't answer him. I have been away. But on a Sunday morning and afternoon many thoughts came together and I offer this not as an answer so much as just a thought.
Gunther asked,
Is compassion really the opposite of power? Can't it be used for power? Compassion is a powerful thing that we can use as a mechanism to influence people. Then is compassion really the opposite of power?
There are those who are powerful because they use what others need to effect their choices.
There are those who appear powerful because they are what others want to be. They give of themselves in a way that creates admiration and a desire to emulate and therefore motivate behavior in a positive way. The difference is intention.
Can using compassion be a mechanism?–A means toward having power. Yes. But it is a question of intention and application not one of automatic power and choice manipulation. If someone needs compassion we can use it as a means of producing power.
Or we can just give it without a demand for a choice that serves us. If we offer compassion without any desire attached to it – it is simply compassion. If we offer affection, understanding and comfort only because we know we can use it to get what we desire – then the intention is not compassion. It is power. Compassion and power are intentions as much as they are phenomena. They are not just the result - they are the purpose. They are not just manifestations they are intentions.
Does that mean power has to be intentional to be power? No. But intending a result isn't always intending power. And if the result is not a compassionate thing, then it must be insome form Power. If the intended result may not be power but if it isn't based in a love of all for the good of ALL then it is power and needs were used to attain a result.
Power.
We use power to build up the self. It is the belief that we are unique and separate individuals who are in competition with all the other individuals in the quest to fulfill our desires. It is the belief that our life purpose is to fulfill desires and all others in the world are here to assist in that pursuit. Others are nothing more than tools for our use.
In truth we are all manifestations or expressions of the great consciousness that flows within and is the essence of all. We are all one. We are all expressions of life that are interconnected and interdependent and are ALL on the path back to that great source.
We are all walking the path. Everyone’s success in that journey is everyone else’s. We, as one great wave of life, are here - free to play within this world of expression.
But we are mislead by the distinctions between things. Those distinctions are creations of the mind and illusions. The distinctions between us are not real. We are al the same and all connected.
Each of us is so reliant on all the others. Each must – and does - support and provide for all the others. It is so obvious we miss it. Where does the matter that makes up our being come from? It comes from the rest of the earth and the living things within it. Soil, rain, worms, sun, animals, other humans. Fire, earth, water, air, chi. The cycle of water. The cycle of matter. The cycle of life. Flowing from one entity into the next. Changing from one form into another.
It is as obvious as our birth. One human being comes out of another. We are all connected and cannot exist without each other. Yet we are convinced that we are in competition and racing for the chance to control each other so we might have what we want.
There is nothing on the earth we can’t have. Each of us can have everything. This is a world of plenty and we are beasts of great ability and talent. Yet we are fixated not on what we want, but on what others want. Our success is not measured in having everything we want but in having more than others have.
We do not want to be great. We want to be better.
We don't want to be happy. We want to be happier.
We are fixated on the others. We want to control them and defeat them and to ultimately have so much more than they do.
This human desire to control others and be better than others is what has fascinated me for decades now. That is why I am so obsessed with power.
I don’t want to control others. My God, what kind of responsibility would that entail? I am afraid of even influencing others with my writing. What if I am wrong? What if all I do is show people how to go around and control each other? That's not why I am writing this stuff.
That’s why I am afraid of publishing these ideas. I am afraid of the responsibility attached to influencing people.
I simply want to help us all release from this painful pursuit of this false sense of self.
I am so completely shocked at people's need to to control other people.
That has been my focus. That is why I want to understand power and explain it. That is why I want all of us to be able to see through it and over come it. That is why I want to explain it so all could have it. Once we are all as power as each other, then there is nothing left but an acceptance that we must all survive or we must all die.
I don't want people to use compassion because it is powerful. I just want them to stop wanting to control others.
All that is left is compassion.
Yes little brother, compassion - like anything that some wants or needs - can be used as a mechanism of power. Anything can be a mechanism of power. It is all a question of intention.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Writing
I have begun the process of working with an editor.
Although I have, what I believe is, a working relationship with the English language, my status as a writer is still somewhat of a neophyte. I have written thousands of pages of material. Most of those pages were legal in nature.
Legal writing is almost mathematical in its structure. Although I believe there is an art in writing an effective, comprehensive and self-contained agreement, there is little artistic value in the words themselves. A client pays for the certainty of a lawyer’s writing but not the clarity. The average layperson does not understand the run-on, complex, multi-conditional sentences that make for good legal drafting. But the confusability factor alone gives appearance of good writing.
Certainly the law has had a significant formative impact on my lexicon and syntax. But before I was a lawyer I was a thinker. I was a guy who wanted to know the “why” – the “why” about everything. Of course that included the “why” about power.
Studying sociology and religion at university gave me more than ample opportunity to read and write. As much as I was able to read all the right things, I was prone to write in an overly stylistic and somewhat verbose manner.
As I struggled against the powers of authority – giving them my consent to use their ability to grade me to obtain from them my certification as an educated mind – I found that it was in my best interests to submit to the critique of a particular T.A. named Michel.
Michel was a divinity doctorial student in the heart of writing a thesis which was focused on the meaning and the historical socio-cultural implications of a small set of sentences in one of the Epistles of Paul.
Who would have thought that so much could be said about so little.
Nonetheless, given his task, I could find no better authority on the subject of communicating in writing.
After my third exasperating “B” from Michel I was left with two choices. Fight with him or submit to him.
So I asked him, “Why?”
He described my writing as full of ideas and logic but absent any discernible pattern of communication. Simply, he said that I wrote in circles using complex, hard-to-read sentences and repetitive language.
He encouraged me to simplify my language. He suggested that I avoid adjectives and adverbs and just say what I meant in one sentence – not six.
After two more papers, Michel told me I got it. I was rewarded with “A”s from that day on.
That lesson helped me with the ability to write legalistically. My law practice helped me hone that direct simple style. Those two experiences - those lessons in writing - made me a pretty good lawyer.
However, I am not sure either has helped me write for you.
Today my new-found ally in the world of words says that my sentences lack style. They are terse and uninteresting. So I turn to her for input to make my writing better.
Once again I submit to an authority – in this case an authority on writing and communication. I do so happily. I do so because I want to be a writer so bad that the desire over powers me.
Her ability to make me better is the mechanism that will make me pay her to listen to her criticisms.
Incredible power isn’t it?
Whether it is my T.A. Michel, my clients or my new found editor I submit to their power because more than anything else before, I want to write for you.
Power - is it good or bad?
I still can’t seem to answer that one.
Although I have, what I believe is, a working relationship with the English language, my status as a writer is still somewhat of a neophyte. I have written thousands of pages of material. Most of those pages were legal in nature.
Legal writing is almost mathematical in its structure. Although I believe there is an art in writing an effective, comprehensive and self-contained agreement, there is little artistic value in the words themselves. A client pays for the certainty of a lawyer’s writing but not the clarity. The average layperson does not understand the run-on, complex, multi-conditional sentences that make for good legal drafting. But the confusability factor alone gives appearance of good writing.
Certainly the law has had a significant formative impact on my lexicon and syntax. But before I was a lawyer I was a thinker. I was a guy who wanted to know the “why” – the “why” about everything. Of course that included the “why” about power.
Studying sociology and religion at university gave me more than ample opportunity to read and write. As much as I was able to read all the right things, I was prone to write in an overly stylistic and somewhat verbose manner.
As I struggled against the powers of authority – giving them my consent to use their ability to grade me to obtain from them my certification as an educated mind – I found that it was in my best interests to submit to the critique of a particular T.A. named Michel.
Michel was a divinity doctorial student in the heart of writing a thesis which was focused on the meaning and the historical socio-cultural implications of a small set of sentences in one of the Epistles of Paul.
Who would have thought that so much could be said about so little.
Nonetheless, given his task, I could find no better authority on the subject of communicating in writing.
After my third exasperating “B” from Michel I was left with two choices. Fight with him or submit to him.
So I asked him, “Why?”
He described my writing as full of ideas and logic but absent any discernible pattern of communication. Simply, he said that I wrote in circles using complex, hard-to-read sentences and repetitive language.
He encouraged me to simplify my language. He suggested that I avoid adjectives and adverbs and just say what I meant in one sentence – not six.
After two more papers, Michel told me I got it. I was rewarded with “A”s from that day on.
That lesson helped me with the ability to write legalistically. My law practice helped me hone that direct simple style. Those two experiences - those lessons in writing - made me a pretty good lawyer.
However, I am not sure either has helped me write for you.
Today my new-found ally in the world of words says that my sentences lack style. They are terse and uninteresting. So I turn to her for input to make my writing better.
Once again I submit to an authority – in this case an authority on writing and communication. I do so happily. I do so because I want to be a writer so bad that the desire over powers me.
Her ability to make me better is the mechanism that will make me pay her to listen to her criticisms.
Incredible power isn’t it?
Whether it is my T.A. Michel, my clients or my new found editor I submit to their power because more than anything else before, I want to write for you.
Power - is it good or bad?
I still can’t seem to answer that one.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Power as a means to an end...
I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what I want to do next with my life and career.
In that constant question I keep coming back to the same answer. It does not matter what I do. The real question/quest/battle/struggle is about how I do it.
I have always been a results oriented guy. Willing to do what it takes to get the job done. Believing in the result, I have always done what it takes.
I have always thought of my self as a pretty good strategist. I am good at evaluating the people and the conditions that surround a matter. Structuring the process so that we get the result we want. Using the circumstances and the needs of people to attain the goal. I have been good with power. I am usually successful. I am aware of the process of power and have shown some ability to use it.
I haven’t always found that to lead to happiness. Often getting what you want makes you unhappy. Desires are smoky things. They are never satisfied. They just shift and change.
Maybe it’s all this grey hair. I think, maybe, it is the scars on my heart.
My hair and my scars tell me today that the ends never justify the means. There are no situations that justify hurting people. There are no reasons to say it is ok to do the wrong thing.
If you can't accomplish something without hurting people then you have not spent enough time strategizing nor have you understood the role of patience.
And so it is much more important to act well each day than to accomplish something at all costs.
And that - as we all know - is one tough assignment.
When I think about all the things I could accomplish I keep coming back to the same goal. I just want to be a better person. I want to live the right life. I want to mediate EVERY day. I want to offer my knowledge to those who ask for it. I want to eat right and sleep well. I want to love tenderly and act justly.
And I believe that that is toughest struggle of all. The world's great and most important battles take place inside us. The ones with great impact are the ones going on inside of people who are living public lives. We don't see the important parts.
I was thinking about means and ends and process and results and was surfing the web looking for others’ thoughts. Each day, I like to post a “thought for the day” for my students on our program website at the college. We all struggle with motivation and direction. We struggle with what life brings us each day. We are all here walking the path. And that is what life is about. When I have things I am struggling with, I like to use the TFTD as a place to suggest to all of us different approaches and ways of thinking.
Looking for ideas on means and ends, I kept coming to were quotes and stories about war and peace.
Interesting.
It is probably the most enormous example of the conflict between means and ends.
I believe that every day George W. Bush asks himself if he was wrong - if he didn't just make a mess of things. However, as a leader, he is not allowed to ask those questions in public.
The real battle and struggle for truth and right is going on inside him every day.
So today, rather than use my power to bash him. Rather than use my ability to have you read my thoughts, against your need for information as you evaluate your world, to have that influence the way you may chose not to support him, I will use my ability for compassion.
Pray for the poor old bugger. Let’s pray that ideas and opportunities come forward that he and his people might find a way to turn this big mess into peace and prosperity. Let’s wish for peace for all those sad people in the world’s most ancient of societies.
That is peace and prosperity as they see it. Not as we see. In the way they want it. Not as we want it.
The end does not justify the means.
Remember that when you continue to ask yourself , “Is power a good thing or a bad thing?”
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi
"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."
-- John F. Kennedy
"War is as outmoded as cannibalism, chattel slavery, blood-feuds, and dueling, an insult to God and humanity...a daily crucifixion of Christ."
Muriel Lester
"Our chiefs are killed...The little children are freezing to death. My people... have no blankets, no food...My heart is sick and sad...I will fight no more forever."
Chief Joseph
"There was never a good war or a bad peace."
Benjamin Franklin
"War would end if the dead could return."
Stanley Baldwin
"If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another."
-- Winston Churchill
"I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war."
-- Cicero.
"War is cruelty and you cannot refine it."
Gen. William T. Sherman 1820-1891
"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime"
Ernest Hemingway
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it"
George Orwell
"Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."
Duke Of Wellington 1759-1852
"More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars -- yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous"
-- George Bernard Shaw
"We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our boys and girls, that is a patriotism above the narrow sentiment which usually stops at one's country, and thus inspires jealousy and enmity in dealing with others... Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler kind which recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which lead our country into comradeship with...the other nations of the world. The first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our frontiers towards our neighbours."
Lord Baden-Powell
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend."
-- Abraham Lincoln
"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."
-- A.J. Muste.
"I would say that I'm a nonviolent soldier. In place of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind, your heart, your sense of humor, every faculty available to you...because no one has the right to take the life of another human being."
Joan Baez
"How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy."
Nietzsche
"At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man's power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events'; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second."
Leo Tolstoy War & Peace
"This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love."
-- Peace Pilgrim.
"The principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites - acquiescence and violence - while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both. The nonviolent resister agrees with the person who acquiesces that one should not be physically aggressive toward his opponent; but he balances the equation by agreeing with the person of violence that evil must be resisted. He avoids the nonresistance of the former and the violent resistance of the latter. With nonviolent resistance, no individual or group need to submit to any wrong, nor need anyone resort to violence in order to right a wrong."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"One of the most persistent ambiguities that we face is that everybody talks about peace as a goal. However, it does not take sharpest-eyed sophistication to discern that while everybody talks about peace, peace has become practically nobody’s' business among the power-wielders. Many men cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as "love." "Love" is an abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing tolife, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self increasing. from To Have or to Be?
Erich Fromm
Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty.
Mahatma Gandhi
In the secret of my heart I am in perpetual quarrel with God that He should allow such things [as the war] to go on. My non-violence seems almost impotent. But the answer comes at the end of the daily quarrel that neither God nor non-violence is impotent. Impotence is in men. I must try on without losing faith even though I may break in the attempt.
Mahatma Gandhi
"The Holy Prophet Mohammed came into this world and taught us: 'That man is a Muslim who never hurts anyone by word or deed, but who works for the benefit and happiness of God's creatures. Belief in God is to love one's fellow men.'"
Abdul Ghaffar Khan
"We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too.
Maíread Maguire
In that constant question I keep coming back to the same answer. It does not matter what I do. The real question/quest/battle/struggle is about how I do it.
I have always been a results oriented guy. Willing to do what it takes to get the job done. Believing in the result, I have always done what it takes.
I have always thought of my self as a pretty good strategist. I am good at evaluating the people and the conditions that surround a matter. Structuring the process so that we get the result we want. Using the circumstances and the needs of people to attain the goal. I have been good with power. I am usually successful. I am aware of the process of power and have shown some ability to use it.
I haven’t always found that to lead to happiness. Often getting what you want makes you unhappy. Desires are smoky things. They are never satisfied. They just shift and change.
Maybe it’s all this grey hair. I think, maybe, it is the scars on my heart.
My hair and my scars tell me today that the ends never justify the means. There are no situations that justify hurting people. There are no reasons to say it is ok to do the wrong thing.
If you can't accomplish something without hurting people then you have not spent enough time strategizing nor have you understood the role of patience.
And so it is much more important to act well each day than to accomplish something at all costs.
And that - as we all know - is one tough assignment.
When I think about all the things I could accomplish I keep coming back to the same goal. I just want to be a better person. I want to live the right life. I want to mediate EVERY day. I want to offer my knowledge to those who ask for it. I want to eat right and sleep well. I want to love tenderly and act justly.
And I believe that that is toughest struggle of all. The world's great and most important battles take place inside us. The ones with great impact are the ones going on inside of people who are living public lives. We don't see the important parts.
I was thinking about means and ends and process and results and was surfing the web looking for others’ thoughts. Each day, I like to post a “thought for the day” for my students on our program website at the college. We all struggle with motivation and direction. We struggle with what life brings us each day. We are all here walking the path. And that is what life is about. When I have things I am struggling with, I like to use the TFTD as a place to suggest to all of us different approaches and ways of thinking.
Looking for ideas on means and ends, I kept coming to were quotes and stories about war and peace.
Interesting.
It is probably the most enormous example of the conflict between means and ends.
I believe that every day George W. Bush asks himself if he was wrong - if he didn't just make a mess of things. However, as a leader, he is not allowed to ask those questions in public.
The real battle and struggle for truth and right is going on inside him every day.
So today, rather than use my power to bash him. Rather than use my ability to have you read my thoughts, against your need for information as you evaluate your world, to have that influence the way you may chose not to support him, I will use my ability for compassion.
Pray for the poor old bugger. Let’s pray that ideas and opportunities come forward that he and his people might find a way to turn this big mess into peace and prosperity. Let’s wish for peace for all those sad people in the world’s most ancient of societies.
That is peace and prosperity as they see it. Not as we see. In the way they want it. Not as we want it.
The end does not justify the means.
Remember that when you continue to ask yourself , “Is power a good thing or a bad thing?”
I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi
"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."
-- John F. Kennedy
"War is as outmoded as cannibalism, chattel slavery, blood-feuds, and dueling, an insult to God and humanity...a daily crucifixion of Christ."
Muriel Lester
"Our chiefs are killed...The little children are freezing to death. My people... have no blankets, no food...My heart is sick and sad...I will fight no more forever."
Chief Joseph
"There was never a good war or a bad peace."
Benjamin Franklin
"War would end if the dead could return."
Stanley Baldwin
"If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another."
-- Winston Churchill
"I prefer the most unfair peace to the most righteous war."
-- Cicero.
"War is cruelty and you cannot refine it."
Gen. William T. Sherman 1820-1891
"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime"
Ernest Hemingway
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it"
George Orwell
"Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."
Duke Of Wellington 1759-1852
"More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars -- yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous"
-- George Bernard Shaw
"We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our boys and girls, that is a patriotism above the narrow sentiment which usually stops at one's country, and thus inspires jealousy and enmity in dealing with others... Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler kind which recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which lead our country into comradeship with...the other nations of the world. The first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our frontiers towards our neighbours."
Lord Baden-Powell
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend."
-- Abraham Lincoln
"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."
-- A.J. Muste.
"I would say that I'm a nonviolent soldier. In place of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind, your heart, your sense of humor, every faculty available to you...because no one has the right to take the life of another human being."
Joan Baez
"How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy."
Nietzsche
"At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man's power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events'; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second."
Leo Tolstoy War & Peace
"This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love."
-- Peace Pilgrim.
"The principle of nonviolent resistance seeks to reconcile the truths of two opposites - acquiescence and violence - while avoiding the extremes and immoralities of both. The nonviolent resister agrees with the person who acquiesces that one should not be physically aggressive toward his opponent; but he balances the equation by agreeing with the person of violence that evil must be resisted. He avoids the nonresistance of the former and the violent resistance of the latter. With nonviolent resistance, no individual or group need to submit to any wrong, nor need anyone resort to violence in order to right a wrong."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The nonviolent approach does not immediately change the heart of the oppressor. It first does something to the hearts and souls of those committed to it. It gives them new self-respect; it calls up resources of strength and courage that they did not know they had. Finally it reaches the opponent and so stirs his conscience that reconciliation becomes a reality."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"One of the most persistent ambiguities that we face is that everybody talks about peace as a goal. However, it does not take sharpest-eyed sophistication to discern that while everybody talks about peace, peace has become practically nobody’s' business among the power-wielders. Many men cry Peace! Peace! but they refuse to do the things that make for peace."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as "love." "Love" is an abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing tolife, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self increasing. from To Have or to Be?
Erich Fromm
Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty.
Mahatma Gandhi
In the secret of my heart I am in perpetual quarrel with God that He should allow such things [as the war] to go on. My non-violence seems almost impotent. But the answer comes at the end of the daily quarrel that neither God nor non-violence is impotent. Impotence is in men. I must try on without losing faith even though I may break in the attempt.
Mahatma Gandhi
"The Holy Prophet Mohammed came into this world and taught us: 'That man is a Muslim who never hurts anyone by word or deed, but who works for the benefit and happiness of God's creatures. Belief in God is to love one's fellow men.'"
Abdul Ghaffar Khan
"We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too.
Maíread Maguire
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Inspired
What a great event last night. So much more than just information flying around. You could feel the energy flowing all about the room. People finding people who could bring them something.
I wish I could write more now but I am off to a new class in my quest for an LLM.
No matter - I am re-inspired.
I promise to get some blogging and writing done over the next few weeks. I think it is time for that book on depowerment.
Thanks to all who were there. You inspired me much more than I could inspire you.
Later - I promise.
Thanks Jess:)
I wish I could write more now but I am off to a new class in my quest for an LLM.
No matter - I am re-inspired.
I promise to get some blogging and writing done over the next few weeks. I think it is time for that book on depowerment.
Thanks to all who were there. You inspired me much more than I could inspire you.
Later - I promise.
Thanks Jess:)
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