Power - The First Excerpt

To be powerful is to have power; power is possession, it is past. To be powerful is to be willful, to “have” will-power, which is to be capable of willing things into presence. Power is directed toward the future, in its willing-nature, but finds its source in the past, in its having-nature.

But also, to be powerful is to be empowered; that is to say, to be with power, for power to be with-and-in you, for power to be present.

Admittedly, this is highly counter-intuitive. Common sense says that the existence of power is dependent on its being exercised. Power that is not exercised is merely theoretical.

But power as presence is not theoretical. The exercise and execution of power is not necessary for it to exist; it exists in the present, as an inactive activity, as an active inactivity.

It exists in the present not theoretically, not possibly, but actually, whether the one possessing power is cognizant of its being-there or not.

We speak of people having airs about them, of people emanating an “energy” or “aura”. Although typically such words conjure images of fortune tellers and new age metaphysics, there is nothing mystical about the practical existence of this so-called “atmosphere”.

We all have just such an atmosphere about us, always. Our being reaches out into the world whether we bear witness to it or not.