The impression that wealth is evil and a sense of influence or authority is bad is a myth, perpetuated by people keeping you in the place they feel you should stay. I think it’s like newspaper stories, that the state of the negative is constantly reinstated, the fixation on failure is to uproot any possibility that may have been or merit you personally may have. When in truth, we incline to good and people who try certainly exist. Do you remember when the news had a positive story at the end? Do you remember ever going outside after hearing a family member or a friend ranting about the world, and noticed how quiet and beautiful it was?
The day where absolutely nothing constructed, without a glimmer of even the slightest momentum or a sight to see is rare. Perspective, like responsibility is power. Great or small, we all have power. And the quietest, most overlooked power is over ourselves. A lot of shining advertisements show people with money and items (or the impression of money and items), but don’t feed your own benefit. One walk to the shop rather than a drive does you, you personally more good than any advert ever has I promise you that. Because the momentum and activity is yours, and your own steps in any direction should never be passed up.
Where other thinkers, philosophers and creatives may delve into quotation, politics, even sports science; all I mean is the smaller personal picture and not the grandiose strategies of financiers and warriors. To influence yourself over negativity picked up by social media or a an apathetic member of your inner circle, due to its close and repetitive nature is in many ways the most pertinent challenge you face. Power over your own appreciation, the pursuits you enjoy, even self esteem is a matter of control and acceptance, and we all know this but few walk the steps due to time and energy being diverted, or the consistent obfuscation of agency being smudged away. This extends into a person’s mind in most cultures through the same roots; modern entertainment -news after all being predominantly state-managed narrative- of the sociopolitical and fictional variety, those mainstream books and films many are becoming disenchanted with to a greater degree.
Not only do apathetic or malevolent people expect a good person not to act, they endeavour to discourage them. Every superman is evil, every heroine shamed or suffering. That people can be symbols, or act for the good is something more than entertainingly questioned, but subverted as a matter of ease for mainstream storytelling. And it doesn’t need to be like that. a bad deed is not reflective of an evil character, as we are told again and again in many stories about anti-heroes, desperate cases, even works focusing upon the entertainment value of the villain. Why not the same with a paragon?
Drive, force, pull. These things make events, slight changes possible. The direction has no sense of fairness or moral alignment, as most of you surely know. But that potential is all there. The capacity for your own motivated direction, it is so easy to place haphazardly. But that never means one cannot rise wherever they like.
Why not for constructive ends? Why not start with the most direct power, aimed at the most difficult but lasting place?
Within.
And we can always be better versions of ourselves, building power as ability, responsibility, and effect.
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