Power. In the evolutionary chapter we find ourselves in, power and the struggle to embody it in ways that are life affirming, not hurtful or harmful to others, remains the essential struggle.
We see macro power struggles played out in the world around us.
Through the debilitating inequities of power in our financial systems…the global surge for power and voice in suppressive political regimes…the power to control and access information in our technology explosion…the monotonous power of our conventional systems of defense, military or law enforcement, used to control anyone or any country exhibiting power that threatens us…and the relentless quest in many societies, including ours, to constrict the value, the freedom and the power of women.
Power finding expression. Power finding parity. We unite across race and class and country to bring balance to macro power disparities as best we can, because the stakes are too high and the costs to our freedoms too great.
It’s hopeful one moment, and crushing the next. The forces for freedom, on the one hand, and control on the other appear locked in a mythic battle. From one perspective, it appears that fewer and fewer of us challenge the dominant global fixation on consumption at all costs.
The majority’s inability to confront intractable assumptions about continued material growth without radically new methods is a choice to condone the ongoing exploitation of humans and nature. Control appears to have the upper hand. Every one of us loses.
Glued to our screens watching the macro power struggles happening around us, we miss the micro power struggles looking for resolution inside us. Science confirms that individual consciousness shapes the world around us. So if we, as individuals, don’t wrestle with the power grabs, the power give-aways, and the power disparities inside us, there is no hope of finding resolution in the power struggles outside us.
I’m not suggesting we halt all purposeful external action. I am suggesting we have neglected the inner battles, the spiritual sides of us, for too long, and we can do both. If we maintain any hope of resolving the unceasing battles in every sphere, we must do both.
Meet the despot or naysayer inside you, trying to live in the same body as the aspiring truth teller, the artist seeking self-expression, the soul longing to live free.
Do we suppress our deeper truths to make sure we don’t rock the boat? Do we contain a soul’s longing in order to protect the people around us from discomfort? Do we censor our own self-expression to keep our place in the hierarchical systems that pays us for our labors as long as we adhere to the conventions they require?