Power

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Is power all in the mind?
What really makes one person have power over another person or group of people?

Do you think it's possible to change from being powerless to powerful just by changing your own mindset?

And if it's that easy then why are there so many powerless people in the world?

What is power?

Power as you are describing is completely learned mental creation. The typical brain is looking to create mental shortcuts wherever and whenever it can to assist in processing of incoming information. Repeated information that the mind categorizes as important gets transitioned to an automated mental shortcut by the typical brain over time, allowing the brain to focus on different information quicker and not get overwhelmed. Society, social groups, parents, peers, schools, and such are all external sources of information that our mind uses to help create our own mental and social shortcuts.

These shortcuts are exactly that, a mental shortcut that triggers a response or behavior automatically and without thought. Because these are learned from our own experiences, observations, actions, and our internal translation of this information there is no guarantee that these shortcuts are morally or socially acceptable. Racism, sexism, and many of the other ism's are all easy examples of this. Children see others they look up to treat specific groups in a certain way and they, over time, encode that same mental attitude and behavior that they learned from others into their own shortcut for all future use without thought.

Think about when you go out and interact with the world around you. Look at the different people in occupations and engaged in different activities. Do you see everyone as your equal or do you automatically view certain people as possibly more or less important than you? Do the clothes and accessories they wear affect how you initially perceive them? Does a tailor made suit mean to you that they are someone important in the world? How about a police uniform; do you view someone wearing that as an authority who holds power over you and others? How about person wearing dirty clothes pushing a shopping cart down the street, do you automatically perceive them as homeless and therefore less important?

We give and take away power to and from others arbitrarily, based on these learned behaviors. Whether this is good or bad isn't an easy thing to answer; to me it seems a little of both depending on many other variables in life affecting each situation. Using mental shortcuts are necessary, but so is using manual thought in many situations. Just because someone presents themselves and appears to you a certain way doesn't mean that they match the mental image your shortcut presents. The shortcut says everyone and everything under its activation shares the same basic parameters, which cannot be true because of people being different. Not all police are the same even though they wear the same uniform; they each have different and unique skills, attitudes, and perspectives that affect reality.

My personal belief is to be very careful giving away personal power to others, and be diligent for people trying to use manipulation, aggression, bullying, and/or threats to take power over us. In my life I have come to the conclusion that the people who most want power over my life are usually the least qualified to have any power over me or anyone else. These people are usually just ego driven idiots who are addicted to feeling powerful. It is difficult when they use threats, difficult to nearly impossible in some instances. Covid was a prime example of this, uncertain people were attacked viscously and bullied into giving up their personal power over their lives by 'authorities'.

In my opinion, power is just the ability to manifest your will. For example, if you want a job, can you make it happen? It doesn't need to be 'over' other people in a master/slave kind of way. Rather, other people might just be obstacles. For example, in the job scenario, there's the person making the decision of whom to hire, and the other people applying.

Apply this to every aspect of your life. What you eat, when, and where. The clothes you wear. Your relationships. Going for a walk. I suppose power is about control.

Can you increase your power? Sure. Learn to be assertive. Rely on discipline instead of motivation. Set achievable goals. Identify obstacles. All the usual stuff.

Power is largely contextual based on your perception/perspective of where you see yourself fit in the hierarchy. Our relationships in modern western society (when you boil it down) are largely transactional in nature. You work out very quickly where the power dynamic exists even with your closest friend, partner or family.

A few simple things illustrate this. A common saying is there is no such thing as a free lunch. So when somebody gives you a present (for whatever reason) then they hold some level of power (even if it's temporary) in terms of obligation. It usually requires some type of reciprocal act in order to create equilibrium in the social dynamic otherwise there is a power imbalance. A more overt example is the idea of trade or barter. It's the whole basis of our money system.

Depends on the context.

You can have power to make certain things happen because you're rich or know people or just for being in the know.

Or, you can have the power to achieve something because you have an ability, a gift or a privilege of some sorts.

Or, you can have power over others because of whatever they're perceiving or believing it to be related to your social status and reputation regardless if you thought or intended it to make of it that way or not.

There are other possibilities, too.


Actually, yes. But mindset is just one factor.
There's also being at and knowing the right time, right place, right people, right circumstances and meeting those conditions ...


Some of those people are just content. That they have enough of it.

A lot of those people are ignorant.
Usually are not questioning why they do things or even want it, despite their desire or anything deeper says otherwise -- or if they do, they don't know how to break out of it for so, so many reasons.
Those reasons can be older than civilization itself, or it can be as recent as the current news.

And also a good portion of it was that they're not collectively smart enough (even if they are the majority and practically are the backbone of everything they knew, and even if they consciously and intellectually understand this fact) but are afraid or too dependent to try to take away the power they gave to the overpowered undeserving minority or stop being fooled repeatedly, mostly because of their idea of 'life' and 'living' or whatever they consider 'good'.