one of the greatest responsibilities of power is to disseminate it.
to turn your power into other people's power, to use your power to empower.
or to use the word "disseminate" directly according to its history: to spread out the seeds of your power, so that more power can grow among the people you share it with.
this is something we are learning.
that power shared is power grown.
and that as fearful as we all are for ourselves, for our families, and for our friends, we all must overcome the drive of that fear that makes us want to hoard the power we have, in the hopes that that hoarding will keep us and those we love always safe.
it does not. in the long run, it is the power---all the different powers, in fact---that we share with each other, that keeps us all safe.
this is not pie-in-the-sky idealism.
this is simply true.
and this truth is quite freeing.
so go have fun with it!
2 comments:
this is a strange post, C. have read it a few times and still don't quite know what to make out of it. not used to the tone of it coming from you, i guess. are you getting very politically involved these days?
btw, how come you have not responded to my mom's comment yet?? Wong MaMa is anxious to hear from you, you know.
No, not terribly involved. But it sure does seem that we all worry too much about keeping power over ourselves, when spreading what we have of power out to other folks, to help them grow it and everything else they need, does a whole lot better job of keeping us safe and happy in the long run.
I have no idea why I have these thoughts. And hey, I have all kinds of tones: I'm a linguist, after all.
Sorry about not responding to your mom's comments. I still think it's hilarious that you could deeply disbelieve that I could post something here without checking all my old posts for comments!
So now I go excitedly to see what your awesome mom has written!
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