[899] Power On

Let's riff on power.

I think people underestimate me. Be careful to prevent yourself from reading that with more than what I'm saying. I'm not saying I have extra or secret powers to be unveiled after appetizer skirmishes. I'm not saying they are consciously saying, “no” or “I don't believe you.” I'm not even saying the ones who aren't would understand what I'm putting down as powerful would regard it in the same way I would.

I think people underestimate me because they underestimate themselves. Where they doubt, I bet they could. Where they profess the truth, I doubt it's so sweetly understood. I habituate a contrarian impulse that shapes my approach to the world. Every “I could never,” if nothing else, gets its thought experiment for just how deeply and aggressively I could. I divorce my ability to entertain every terrible or amazing idea from an insistent moral or value flavor were you to share it with the wrong person.

I consider this ability part of my immutable power. As long as I can feel, say, or do otherwise, nothing will remain sacred or too powerful. Your authority is suspect. Your words will be open for discussion and dissection. Like all forms of power, it's ambivalent to the outcome of its exercise. I either crash your disposition and into how you conceive of yourself, or I don't register at all but as someone carrying on a discussion or making a harmless point. Rarely, if ever, am I able to tell something to someone they don't already know about themselves, but the reaction isn't so often a nod in solidarity more than a condemnation for the whole intellectualized posture and mere speculation of their character or motivation.

I think people have considerably smaller conceptions of their own power that often conform to modern narratives or prescriptions from authority. What's a “middle-manager?” Someone who has played along long enough to get someone underneath them they can dictate to. Whether they are actually feeling responsible for those people, or what they say to them, is entirely removed from the hierarchical structure's implication. They're your boss. They manage. In fact, “management” is whatever they're doing. There's no check on the implicated reality without you bringing one to the table.

I think people are embarrassed at the amount of power they have and double down on their embarrassed paralysis in observing how little they use it. It's not that they don't know what they could do, it's that they don't choose to engage the consequences all the way through. This is born of a false notion that everything isn't playing out its series of consequences at all times. You have to pick what you're choosing to suffer or the suffering that's going to happen anyway will be for nothing.

I find myself in a persistent power imbalance. I have a habit of being able to demonstrate my ability in ways I struggle to describe as anything beyond making people feel inferior or resentful. I have the “power” to play-along, find my middle-management impulse, and settle into the kind of graduated authority I obtained in my first job in high school. It generally takes less than 3 months before someone, somewhere, gives me the license or authority well before and independent of a matching title or paycheck. This translates practically into me getting taken advantage of and elicits an endless array of bureaucratic platitudes to my offers-cum-pushes for increased access, control, or responsibility.

The first rule in The 48 Laws of Power is to not outshine the master. Be deferential, and god forbid you're charming, try to avoid working for them altogether. In my capacity at DCS and now social working, I connect. My habit of seemingly baseless (invisible) speculation on my observations allows me to get people to crack or comply. My unwillingness to compromise on a certain kind of behavioral standard makes the rules by how I orient my life real for you. I'm charming, deadly honest, and I happen to have an inexhaustible well that's oriented to making a big show or example of what I'm capable of. I denounce the concept of masters and routinely leave them blind. It's never been a secret why I've wanted to strike out on my own entrepreneurially or am super enthusiastic about turning a spot in cousin-fuck Indiana into something remotely representative of my values.

Am I powerful in other ways? I'm fairly strong. I'm terrible at getting sick, but have tended to survive. I have strong opinions on the forms political engagement should take place. The relationships I cultivate and seek to protect form a basis around how I think my values can be extended and manifest independent of me. I try to keep the chaotic and angry ship of my brain flowing with the wind and current yet not carried away. I think writing is powerful. I'm giving shape to the infinitely abstract. I'm building another anchor and reference point. I'm seeking a point of connection I can never know and trusting the consequences matter.

What's the nature of your power? If it's memes, try again. If it's self-effacing excuses and shoulder shrugs, try again. If it's mocking the very idea or question altogether, think about the example you are setting. Think what you would tell a child you cared about. Think as though what you can do or say will last forever, and whatever people may think of you, that's what they're going to see. Would you recognize yourself in what you said or did? Were you even trying?