opinion

The Illusion of Power

Why is it that everyone is concerned with power? Power is something that a lot of us want, a few of us don't want, and the rest wonder about. It is not the end all be all, it is not even that important. The problem is, power is but an illusion.

Some would say that men have power over women because we are bigger or stronger or some other such nonsense. Right. When you fight with your wife or girlfriend, where are you sleeping? Does the person in power end up on the couch like you?

Or even look at the business we work in, driven entirely by horny men willing to pay to look at naked women. Think of the power women have over men, that this desire has created an industry that has to be one of the largest in sheer dollar value and even employees.

It makes me shake my head when people say that strip clubs are degrading to women, that it makes them powerless or whatnot. For anyone who has ever been, the men are the ones sitting there drooling, hoping for a quick look in their direction. They are the ones paying. They are the ones hoping for something. They are the degraded lumps, sitting there with stiffies and beers. Who's in charge now?

Travel on up the power ladder, does the owner of any company have power? We all think they do, they sign our paycheques and all, right? Wrong. What happens if everyone gets up one day and walks out. I mean every single employee? Like a union strike, if the company is small enough, then they are screwed. They don't have the resources and whatnot to be able to get replacements in fast enough. Nor do they have a big enough name to be able to explain to suppliers and clients what is going on.

I guess what I am getting at is that power is an illusion.

You may say that the president, for example, is the most powerful person in the world. Thing is, he did not get there without the votes (or courts recently) of the people - thus, who had the power in that election? While the people may have held the power during the election, that does not mean that it transferred to the president afterwards. Can he do anything he pleases? No, he cannot. Thus, where is the power? We live in our little shells, believing what we are told and what is apparent right in front of us.

And even for the conspiracy theorists out there, you may think that there is a secret cabal of illuminati that run this planet. But if there is a group, then no one person controls the group, thus none of them, in essence, have any real power.

Even if there were only one single person, one person that controls the fate and destiny of each and every one of us in this world, the head of this secret shadow group, who is to say that that person cannot be killed? A lone assassin, in the (offical) Kennedy style, could simply end that rule. To show the complete reality of the power illusion, this head of all honchos could catch a nasty bug, fall ill and die. The most powerful person on earth felled by a creature too small to see with the naked eye.

This is my point. No one is infallible, no one is immune to all threats. None of us have any real power or control. We live in our little shells, believing what we are told and what is apparent right in front of us. It can be a blissful existence, but we need to stop and think now and then, to see past the rosy tint and realize the world for what it is.

But, I have to go now, my girlfriend needs me to do something. And I don't want to sleep on the couch tonight!

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