The illusion of power

August 3, 2013

The rain comes with no sense of shame, leaving its trail of tears across the wet landscape – a gray misery disguised with a fake sense of relief from heat, a sadness of personal conquests few can easily see amid the glitter and dripping.

We walk stress empty of shadows, making all seem that much lonelier since bad company, we think, is better than no company, and we are wrong.

Strolling along the street with only our reflections in the car windows, an honest, but distorted reflection of who we are and who we think we might be. The rain washes away the illusions along with the dust because as the old adage goes” we are born alone and we die the same way, and days like this remind us, a good tale to keep inside for when we are foolish enough to believe otherwise.

This was a week of illusions, of people pursuing power that they can’t have or handle including me, doom always just a breath or two away, regardless of how strong I feel. It is never strong enough, and while others can latch onto strong people to allow them to carry on, I don’t have the stuff to do that, or the lack of conscience. I can’t convince anyone to take me on and so I cling to the illusion of power in the hope that others believe I have more than I actually have, and let the sword hang over me, to leave me, unscathed.

Sometimes, it is just impossible to defend yourself against false accusations, no matter how hard you try, and the best thing to do is the lie lie so that ultimately, the liars defeat themselves.

Life, of course, is only this moment in which we live, the past and future, illusions. One we manufacture out of our own memory to what we perceive we experience, the other a fantasy based on our sometimes exaggerated expectations. Those who live in the past are often disillusioned, seeing their time as already expired, and those who live in the future, deluded and drawn on by the belief of what they might never become.

Power is always in the present, what you do at this moment, what resources you drawn on. Some wisely invest today’s power in the future, building a framework of relations they can draw on at need. But even then, even the most powerful, generally spend their lives alone.