Power

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Definition of Power: The ability or capacity to do something effectively.

In other words, it is potential energy. It is the potential to make an impact on the world through action. You can choose to realize this, or squander it.

Nietzsche argued that life’s driving force is not survival alone, but the will to power—the deep need to shape, to create, to transcend. It’s about mastering self. It’s the ability to transform suffering into strength, to turn limitation into possibility.

The greater purpose in life is to realize this transcendence. Realize you are part of the orchestrating of this grand play. And everything you do contributes to the expansion of the universe.

We are all makers of the collective reality. But it is up to YOU to shape yours. That is a lot of responsibility. You have to accept that...

...you are responsible for everything that happens to you.

Everything beautiful.

Everything fucked up.

Suddenly, you direct yourself into work that serves your honest and best self interest.

But don't get self interest confused with selfishness.

Self interest is the building of self into higher sentience. Gaining better understanding. The birth of your soul.

Selfishness is the receipt of benefits at the expense of others.

Contrast the two.

You'll find selfishness is the shadow of self interest. It doesn't take work to be selfish. But to be self interested...can prove to be immensely difficult. For example, why is it so hard for people to go to the gym? Or to read more? These things benefit you, but hard to do.

While circumstance can also limit our self interest, what you do within your circumstance is what defines self agency. In other words, how you rise to the occasion, big or small, is the cultivation of your personal power.

There is power in recognizing that life is unfair. But this can quickly turn to weakness when allowed to turn into resentment. Nietzsche warned against those who, instead of facing their obstacles, use it as an excuse for inaction.

True power is not in victimhood, but in the refusal to submit to it.

In Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl speaks to the power he had in finding meaning, maintaining hope, and choosing his response to imprisonment in the concentration camps. It was his refusal to give up hope that kept him alive.

When you don't realize your personal power, you have relinquished it to others. You refuse to be responsible for what happens to you. You refuse to direct yourself into honest work. Why should you? If all the things you want are offered for free, why put in work?

But your universe will become small.

You become scared. The things you receive come only if others are careless enough to give it to you. Or you take it from them. You depend on the energy put forth from others in order to survive. So you lack personal strength. You lack personal power. You become forced into situations because you cannot decide.

You have become weak.

Weakness is inherently dangerous to us as a species. It is dangerous to the expansion of our communities and societies. It halts production, inhibits expansion, and starves people of freedoms. It is death.

The mental state of being weak is a personal choice. And weak men are inherently evil.

The world does not suffer from an excess of strength—it suffers from an epidemic of weakness disguised as virtue. The question is not whether you have power. The question is whether you will claim it, or whether you will make the world suffer for your refusal.

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