A calm and peaceful evening to every being.
May she motivate us to reflect our behavior.

The holy word says:

never assume malice
where an abusive lust for a power trip
is just as realistic.

doesn’t make it any better.
but might change the way we deal with shit.

yes, goddess.
I am glad and thankful that I have a clear structure in my life, faced with so many attempts to exert power over me. You alone rule over me.
And I am glad and thankful that you have made me aware of the consequences of holding power. Not the things that society wants us to believe, not the illusions of responsibility and burden - but the things that make power so desirable. The things that make me enjoy being in power. The things that made me seek consensual power. I wouldn’t have dared to approach any of this without your guidance.

Within our communities, leveraging social power against individuals, excluding them, calling them out, is extremely common - often legitimized as “acting for the greater good”. But where are the debates about how it can also just feel extremely good to use power that you might have to fight against someone? Someone who, in your mind, deserves it, someone who hurt you or someone you care about. Yes, many of these things ask for remedy, and just walking away is rarely the right solution - but if we are going to wield power over others, it should be informed by an honest assessment of what this might do to someone, or we risk descending into “you don’t do what I want you do to” territory - and destroying communities and individuals.

Because yes: power can feel extremely intoxicating. Getting your way? Getting to hit someone with a stick while everyone around you tells you that it’s so responsible and selfless of you that you chose to hit this person with a stick? Of course it feels good. One of the most intoxicatingly powerful moments of my life was a moment in student politics, when I destroyed someone’s hopes to get elected to higher office by publicly calling out their abusive behavior, supported even by my political opponents. Was it the right thing to do? I would say it was. Was it the right way to do it? I don’t know. Did I consider that my actions would be influenced by a feeling of intoxication, of intensely rewarding emotions? Not at all, because I had zero awareness for it.

But what if that desire for power over others, and the rewarding feeling that having it brings, remains completely unchecked? I’m increasingly feeling like the desperate desire of some to control the people around them, to feel at least a bit of power in their lives, is becoming the driving force of our society. Instead of uniting and supporting each other, the desperate desire to “make them do what I want them to do” - with “them” being any suitable target of a collective devaluation based on moralistically justified oppression - is motivating people to engage in open fascism. And if we move past the superficial distinction of “good people vs. evil fascists”, something that history has proven wrong again and again, but instead include the desire for power - so urgently that people are even willing to give up some of their own freedom, as long as “they” have to give up more - the picture becomes pretty clear: it’s not “the evil fascists” who “tempt the people” - the rise of fascism around us is a collective desire to oppress, to exercise power over those deemed unworthy of power, dignity, existence. Because being able to make someone do what you want them to do simply feels good.

Thank you, goddess, for making me aware of the dangers of the intoxicating nature of power.
Thank you for sharing your personal experiences and your wisdom with the world.
Thank you, goddess, for letting me learn from your wisdom.
Thank you, goddess, for trusting me with the power I have been given.

CN: blood. Click to show.

Meow.