Is it me, or are we too obsessed when it comes to power? As children, we’ve all had the experience of having somebody hoard all the toys. Some kids would cry, others would go in and beat the be-whoopie out of the other kid and take all the toys for their own, and occasionally one kid would get hold of one toy and leave the other kid holding the rest. Now that is a smart child. The child with one toy is still content, and the other still has a stockpile, but only has two hands to hold onto them, and legions of other kids who will annoyingly cry or come in hungry for some be-whoopie time.
Power isn’t about having all the money or having all the answers or fifty jillion legions backing you up. Nor is power about being the person with one opinion whom everybody backs out of their own hunger for status or fear of not belonging if they digress. These are the problems causing terrorism and bullying and drug wars and everything else wrong with the world.
The horrifying part is that some people think the only way to hold onto power is to kill everybody who doesn’t agree with their opinions. The terrorists who blow themselves up may take out a dozen people with one bomb, just to make sure a dozen fewer people don’t walk around not believing in a particular interpretation of an idea. Unfortunately the bomber also takes themselves out, so it seems awkward to be so desperate for a certain way of life that nobody else is allowed to exist who doesn’t believe in it.
If we want to put religion into the picture, the duality of good and evil, and the existence of each in spite of the other, is proof that killing is not the way to have power. If killing off all the good by evil or evil by good were the solution, it would have happened by now. They both have to exist, in varying quantities, for the world to be balanced. True power is having enough to hold onto with your own two hands, others can have some as well, and nobody is coming to beat the be-whoopie out of you for what you have.
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