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Whatever we did, we did for power.
Money. Love. Beauty. Respect. Family.
Power to control, to seduce, to create, to morph.
Science to control our surroundings, psychology to control ourselves. Society to control our world.
Everything you could have possibly yearned for, anything you could want, in the end, was merely a tireless quest for dominance.
It sounds vain, even as I think it. To reduce the entire of our lives, all our hopes, our dreams, our drive, as they would say, to one pathetic power-play.
But to be vain itself is a power, to have the power to be vain, to be selfish, to think only of oneself. A luxury. How we wasted it.
Don’t be like that, they would tell us. Serve. Adapt. Fulfil.
Be selfless, sans the self, shrink yourself, smaller, smaller, until you no longer exist.
How can you want when you are not in being?
You are content, they told you. Happy. This is what happiness feels like.
How were we to know?
It’s why we fell in the end, I think to myself.
Because there was that ‘more’ lingering in the air, more power over the other person, loved more, respected more.
Big words like ‘unconditionally‘ and ‘forever‘ thrown about, disrupting the balance.
When we fought over the TV remote, the restaurants, who paid the bill, who fed the cat, who took out the trash. Hands flying, head shaking, dishevelled, letting loose, words spewing out of red lipstick, I remember, there was so much red towards the end.
How trivial, we thought, how mundane.
In the end, it was those little things that did it.
We laughed about it afterwards, of course, hands clutched together, eyes smiling, mingled sighs and half-hearted apologies.
But the more was still in the air, whispering, scheming.
They say that when you go deaf, it starts off as just a small humming in your ears. And then day after day, night after night, it slowly drowns out the world around you, until it’s all you can hear.
That was what it was like, this ‘more‘. It was like going deaf, deaf to what you have, right before you.
When we pretended we didn’t care, hurting, hurting so much, battered, broken, tired, oh-so-tired. That was about power too.
Apathy. Ignorance. The less you care, the better. The less you know, the less you care. Close your eyes, go in blind, go in deaf, more, more, more.
We craved the imbalance and we paid for it. The scales finally tilted. We fell.
In the end, we fell, falling, falling, was that power?
Was I happy, then?
I can’t remember.
The fall was a grey blur, a single whoosh, a rush of blood to the head, passion, lust, rage, hunger, us gasping for breath, breathless.
It was breathtaking, as they would say.
That’s not always a good thing.
Photo by Yessica Villalobos on Unsplash
Brilliant
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Thank you so much, Kylee! ❤️
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At the end, trying to adapt to others we lose ourselves, our uniqueness that we are so proud of.
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True. Thank you for taking the time to read and comment here, Ianus! ❤
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Reblogged this on Change The Code.
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Thank you so much, Mark! It means a lot ❤
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My pleasure! You are a fantastic writer 🙂
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Golden introspection of self juxtaposed to all. Vanity urges POWER for certain. Egotistic illusions dangled. Yeah i feel like I discovered GOLD. That’s because I did, Thank You Natalie Swift!
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I’m glad you liked it! Thank you for taking the time to read and comment! ❤
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Where have you been all my life?
Are you for real? Can I touch you or is it all a dream?!
Your writing..
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Haha thank you so much, Kat. That truly means a lot ❤
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Thank you for following Journal of a Young Buddhist Radical. Your post on Fall to Power was quite insightful about the nature of power itself and the inner struggle with the vanity of it all, struggles which King Solomon puts forth in Ecclesiastes quite profoundly. As I read your post it seems like you were talking about many of those in power today in Washington. Much to think about. I should re-read it. James
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I’m glad it resonated with you, James. Thank you so much for taking the time to read and share your thoughts here! ❤
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Profoundly self reflective line-“It’s why we fell in the end, I think to myself.”
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Fantastic post
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Thank you! ❤
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Damn. Your pen is a self-introspective guillotine. Let it fall. Let it fall!
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“Self-introspective guillotine”: I simply love the way you put it. In a way, I suppose that’s what all writers are; baring the most shameful corners of our world so that a story can live.
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Occam’s razor was a pen. Yours is damn sharp.
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I love the way you write, it’s beautiful. Thank you for finding time to read my blog I’m always humbled by someone new reading it.
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It was my pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to visit and comment.
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This Blog is practically Everything ❤
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Thank you so much, Ajitha. That means a lot.
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Exceptional👌!love your choice of words
Thumbs up dear👍
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Thank you.
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Nice analysis of the pros and cons of questing for more. Ayn Rand my heroine wants greed to be the creed, for all to want more. But real insightful thoughts.
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Thank you. I’m yet to read any of her’s but I keep hearing her books are amazing. Any recommendations?
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We wield all these powers by birth. But to me, the greatest of all is the power that lies behind self-control. Thank you for his wonderful piece, Shreya. This work of yours spoke directly to me.
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She. Ayn Rand had only published two great works – The Fountain Head and Atlas Shrugged. But I don’t think you will cherish the books. You better be yourself no need for Rand’s brand of capitalism, individualism etc. You rock and keep rocking.
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Whoa your blog is dynamite!!
As soon as I click3 on it, I was like YEESSS!!
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Haha, thank you! So glad you’re enjoying my work ❤
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Of course!!! 💕❤️💜💗♥️
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‘But the more was still in the air, whispering, scheming.’
my favourite line; says so much!
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Thank you, Antonia! Glad you liked it ❤
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🙂
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when its all about the power ,does it really matter in the end?
so touching .
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Exactly my thoughts…
Thank you! I’m glad it resonated ❤
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…Powerful words of the powerful mind, talking about the facts of the real life, and how everything that we do in our lives is controlled by others, we are becoming more and more like the people in George Orwell’s book “1984”., the World of Big Brother. I like your powerful and meaningful set of words that you use. Also, the blog layout is so fantastic and professional! 🙂
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Thank you! I’m so glad you’re enjoying it ❤
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🙂
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Reblogged this on jkjatestar.
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You can learn a lot about someone by making a little effort to understand how they think of power. I once understood it as the peak of mountains. Nothing above it but the dreamy, vapid clouds.
That was before the first of the days of my life — those days people who grow old like me now sometimes look back upon and call the better loves, the curiously transforming great loves of their lives.
It takes a bit of genius, I suspect, to compose a poem about power as seen from the perspective of “Fall to Power”. To see how it is the quintessence of human nature to turn the inherent social instinct of poo-flinging apes to rank themselves against others — to turn that instinct into the meaning of everything in life. And then go further than that to see how it might bring about our own fall.
At least, that’s my take on your poem. Not sure how spot on I am. A professor once called me “Pre-Christian”, “Ancient Greek”, and “Possessed by the Tragic Worldview of the Athenians”. Didn’t know a damn thing about what he was talking about at the time. But nowadays I wonder if I don’t see the tragic flaw of our species in nearly everything.
I agree with the other good folks who have commented — the ones I have read — this is an excellent poem in the fullest sense of “to excel”. Thanks for it.
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Thank you. I don’t think there’s any right interpretation of the piece; when I look back now, what I was thinking when I wrote the piece seems irrelevant.
” But nowadays I wonder if I don’t see the tragic flaw of our species in nearly everything.”: We’re only as strong as our weakest links, after all. And besides, it’s only our ‘flaws’ that can be pondered on, dissected, and examined. Dwelling on our dominance as a race is hardly as intruiging, nor is such scrutiny necessary…
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So strange how we so often chase after the unnecessary with a will everyone else — every other animal — reserves for chasing after the necessary, Natalie. What’s up with that, anyway? And how can we so often fail to notice it?
Not saying it’s a bad thing, not saying it’s a good thing. But this blind chasing is a thing. Allegedly the most powerful brain of all, and yet it sometimes seems our main use for it is to hide ourselves from ourselves with it.
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Power is a drug, a vapor hope, and a hopeless legacy.
Not more, not less.
Superb masterpiece of writing!
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Loved the way you’ve put it…
Thank you so much. I’m delighted to hear you enjoyed it<3
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Yassss! More is the real Monster. I love this so much 🙏
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Thank you for linking to me, Neru!<3
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I love all of ur work, plz let me know ur new domain here or thru email
jazramesses@gmail.com
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Thank you! Will add you to the list.<3
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