On Power

As I meditate on the impermanence of all things, I eventually struggle with the thought of power. When most people consider power, they consider perhaps the "awesome power of (the Christian) God, the power of words, the power of prayer....so on and so forth. This type of power doesn't concern me. The preceding is merely placing a power (which may or may not be actual) in someone else's hands. The power I come to, and the power I speak of now, is one's own power.

How much power do we actually have? What exactly is power? Of course all of these have subjective answers, and I have no idea what the right answer is. I always think of Scarface, the Godfather, Requiem for A Dream...the wrongfully pursued and miscalculated power of oneself or ones willpower. Hmmm...how does that play into this equation?

Yet again, I draw a blank.

I'm somehow attracted to this inescapable link between power and pride. Both are impermanent, as is everything, but they both feed each other with such fire and unending devotion that it is almost impossible to escape them.. I came to this conclusion this morning in meditation. Power and pride walk together, palms pressed as lovers do, fingers entwined...a love forbidden yet so unavoidable. Much like fear and anguish, confusion and persuasion, rhetoric and ignorance....
Man and suffering.

Which leads me back to impermanence.

Am I trying to teach myself something?

/Bows

Ryan