I've been meaning to write this post ages ago as the thoughts had finally found an honest to goodness form. Now this post has to do with many things and will not just focus on one or two things but the theme will be ever relevant. Follow me here cuz this post is going to be riddled with tangents.
Now have you ever thought about where power really comes from? In this modern era of technology and politics it's a bit more vague then what our ancestors had dealt with. In times before civilization and even when we had finally started em power was simply about strength. Who was stronger? Who would win in a fight? If you needed something you simply needed to be strong enough to take it. Whether it be food or shelter.
Fast forward a couple thousand years and then we start to truly frown on raw strength as a sign of power. We begin to value real intelligence and the ability for people to learn to comprehend laws and why they exist. Now power starts to shift from simply being able to claim a right to something to being able to figure out how to claim something minus the violence. Now here's where things truly change:
Money. Currency. Trading.
Now whenever any sort of exchange is made it sort of creates a tug of war between two people. Each person is holding something the other wants yet negotiation is now taking place. Negotiation is where the definition of power becomes more than blurry as now each person wields a certain amount of power over the other. This post isn't going to be about that so we will visit it another time.
In the above example we have a struggle and with that struggle we yield stress and therefore an emotional response. Whether or not it's strong is not apart of this but there is always some sort of reaction. In a transaction we will give in to someones desire to grab power from us.
Think about your family and friends and loved ones. Now think about all that you do for them on a daily basis and what they do for you. Do you feel like everything is fair between everyone? Do you feel like every equation is balanced according to your perception of them?
More and more often i see people who are willing to yield their power to someone else due to emotional constraints. People who are willing to give more than they can, or people who are willing make morally grey decisions based on the amount of power they yield.
Now power at this point represents the ability to make decisions that
make us happy with our lives. From convincing yourself that your dead
end job will get better or that your significant other will suddenly be
different or that the bills will magically disappear.
Now why does anyone give up their power? At the end of every day we need certain things to keep living. Food, water, place to live and some form of social activity. Why do people not even dare to wield their power?
I can understand being afraid to make your own choices - for who wants to be actively responsible for fucking up their own life? At the same time it was your own choice and not someone else. We can all make claims to why have lost power but we can always make equal strides to try and gain that power back. Without that ability life would suck and there would never be anything worthy of chronicling. Many people seem to forget their own self worth as well as that everything passes with time. Everything will change whether or not we want it to.
Everyone should be glad to have what they do and never blame someone else for their mistakes. No one is perfect and no one will ever wield power 100% responsibly. We lose it because we don't respect it or don't respect the decisions we make with it.
Power is part of what video games are so damn successful. Without the power angle of games - even if we do or do not realize it - is a huge part of the appeal. The ability to make a decision without actual consequences and yet can yield positive emotional results? Sign me up too.
On that note - To Star Wars: The Old Republic I'm on the server Corellian Run with a Jedi Consular name Raikoh
