I don't know when I last posted here, but I know it's been awhile. All I know this is that I'm coming back into the shadows from the Light of the mundane world. I feel like I'm coming home again
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I believe that every person should strive to meet their full potential, though I also believe that you NEVER reach your full potential. The better you become, the more possibilities open up. I believe it is a personal responsibility to push yourself to become stronger, smarter, more knowledgeable, better physically, more in tune with yourself and your spirituality.
I also believe that this is how you become truly powerful.
But as with so many other things, the higher the potential payoff, the more risks there are. When you push yourself to confront, control, and increase your personal power, you open yourself up to the option of becoming power-hungry. And that is up to each person to choose which path they go down.
So, when you have a group of people who all are focusing on increasing their personal power, as well as the group's collective power, you have many opportunities for it to go awry. You also diminish the (mechanical) tolerances for screw ups and interpersonal bullshit. The more intense a group is, the more difficult it is to maintain unity and cohesiveness. I don't believe it is the nature of power, but the nature of humans when dealing with power.
More generally, shadowthorne, it was good to talk to you on the phone and good to have you back on lj.
If you get some time, you might want to look back some in my lj. Since I really like to have people comment on my older posts of substance, I delete all my ephemeral posts after a week or two.
I also believe some reasons behind the seemingly inherent solitary nature of power-seekers is 1- it makes you crave contact with others less, and 2- it makes it more difficult to find people you truly relate to.
I completely agree with pretty much everything you wrote here. I've pretty much chosen that it's easier and more pleasant to be solitary and thus, NOT power-hungry. But I wonder if there's not some laziness in there, too. I was originally raised Catholic and still have a bit of it in me, and Sloth is definitely my biggest problem of the Deadly Sins.
I believe there IS some laziness. I know I have issues with that. I am striving to find away to reach for my own personal power, while avoiding the pitfalls of selfish ambition.
I am, for the most part, solitary. My husband and I, however, are working on creating a community of like-minded individuals with the same ideals and goals. Hopefully one day we'll be in a situation where we can switch back and forth between solitary and group, with ease and comfort.
And I have to point out, I've known solitaries who were power-hungry. It's just more common in a group, where you have natural competition goosing things along.
Oh, certainly -- what I really meant was that I am solitary because I don't want conflict with others. I can see that's not really what I said, though. I think I was still thinking things through as I was writing. But, what I'm understanding as "power-hungry" here is in terms of power-over, and you can't really do "power-over" without another person (someone to be "over"), and without at least a fairly strong risk of conflict. In my laziness, I don't want to deal with conflict much, which is why I am finding it more pleasant to be solitary--at least there's one area of my life where I don't need to risk conflict.
Writing and talking helps me process things in my brain. So by the time I've finished saying what I meant to say, my opinion has changed. *grins*
Well, I could nitpick, and point out that some solitaries become power hungry because they don't have the feedback from others, the red flags saying "Hey! You're turning into an asshole!" When you don't regularly interact with others, it's easy to develop a feeling of isolation and superiority.
But it is generally easier to avoid that conflict and ambition without the group dynamics.
And I need conflict. If I don't get to argue with others, I start arguing with myself. *grins*
I believe it is a personal responsibility to push yourself to become stronger, smarter, more knowledgeable, better physically, more in tune with yourself and your spirituality.
I also believe that this is how you become truly powerful.
But as with so many other things, the higher the potential payoff, the more risks there are. When you push yourself to confront, control, and increase your personal power, you open yourself up to the option of becoming power-hungry. And that is up to each person to choose which path they go down.
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More generally, shadowthorne, it was good to talk to you on the phone and good to have you back on lj.
If you get some time, you might want to look back some in my lj. Since I really like to have people comment on my older posts of substance, I delete all my ephemeral posts after a week or two.
Reply
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I believe there IS some laziness. I know I have issues with that. I am striving to find away to reach for my own personal power, while avoiding the pitfalls of selfish ambition.
I am, for the most part, solitary. My husband and I, however, are working on creating a community of like-minded individuals with the same ideals and goals. Hopefully one day we'll be in a situation where we can switch back and forth between solitary and group, with ease and comfort.
And I have to point out, I've known solitaries who were power-hungry. It's just more common in a group, where you have natural competition goosing things along.
Reply
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Well, I could nitpick, and point out that some solitaries become power hungry because they don't have the feedback from others, the red flags saying "Hey! You're turning into an asshole!" When you don't regularly interact with others, it's easy to develop a feeling of isolation and superiority.
But it is generally easier to avoid that conflict and ambition without the group dynamics.
And I need conflict. If I don't get to argue with others, I start arguing with myself. *grins*
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