Conversation

QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
okay so let's be a little more precise. there's a large vein of contemporary thought that considers "power" a dirty word and overtly spurns it; i see it as a protest against the abuse of power but it conflates that abuse with the power itself
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Visa ✈️ SF (Aug 2-14)
@visakanv
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Replying to @QiaochuYuan
I'd actually instead invite you to consider that if you took a bit more effort to be a little more precise about your claims, you would become more powerful as a consequence
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
when i say "power" i am referring to the most ordinary boring normal version of the concept - the ability to do things, to create change changes can be good or bad so power is ethically neutral; in that sense it makes sense to worry about the cultivation of power in *isolation*
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
"power" is lowercase to distinguish it from "Power" which is more complicated because it's charged with symbolism. Power is the thing that "white people," or "the government," or "rich people," or "jews," have: the people who are the source of all the Problems
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
the Problem is not that those people have Power, though. it may be that some people have Power but don't have wisdom or discernment. it has become bizarrely difficult to talk about this because we no longer agree on a religion that could tell us what wisdom is
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
so, back to the original tweet. if i were to read it more charitably i would emphasize the word "search" over the word "power." when i imagine what the OP means by "search for power" i imagine a kind of desperate egoic craving for Power. the symbolic one
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ola fad
@olafado
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The search for power is a result of lacking awareness of who one is 💭
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
the implicit spiritual claim here is that proper Awareness of one's True Nature, or whatever, will calm such egoic cravings. perhaps you even will come to understand and thereby transcend the illusory nature of Power itself. fine, whatever. but "Power" is not "power"
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
the point of coming to terms with the illusory nature of "Power" is to restore your ordinary boring working relationship to power, the lowercase-p one, instead of being lost in a fantasy about finally having all the control or respect or whatever you're looking for from Power
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
meanwhile: it is fine to want power to do good things in the world. it is fine to want power to help yourself and the people around you. it is fine to want power so you can do shit that's really funny or cool even
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