Power and Violence (it’s not what you think)
Why does a blog about Happiness need a post about Power and Violence?
I asked myself this question and I came up with a slew of answers, but only one answer sticks out as the real reason it’s in this blog, and why it’s in The Basics: because Erna uses these terms a lot.
If you ask Erna, you will get a very technical answer:
In physics, “power” is defined as:
Power = Work / Time
The more units of work you can do in a defined amount of time, the bigger is your power. For example, if you define work as moving stones from one place to another with his bare hands, then the person who can move more stones in a shorter time is the more powerful.
Power can also be symbolized by a vector: the bigger the arrow, the stronger the movement in the direction of the arrow’s tip.
All of this is valid and worth keeping in your pocket, as sometimes talk of time and vectors does come up during our discussions. But a conversation Erna and I had over coffee one day is my favorite way of conceptualizing power:
“Have you ever been to Kathmandu?” she asked me. Nope. And if I’m being honest, I’m not even sure I could find it on a map. “The traffic there is crazy, with bicycles and mopeds and buses and taxis all sharing one road. No one really pays attention to the traffic rules, but everyone manages to get where they’re going – even the pedestrians who cross the street!
“See, there are kind of unwritten rules that you follow in Kathmandu. There are no traffic lights or signs, and weaving – between lanes, between cars, whatever – is encouraged. It’s almost a dance that everyone does. You have to guess a little bit what the people around you are going to do, and honking is a typical way of communicating with someone else on the road. But even with that many people, there are surprisingly not a lot of accidents.
“Each of those people on the road has power. They have a goal (destination) and some means of getting there, whether in a big truck or by foot. Of course someone in a truck has more power than someone on foot, but they keep on moving, continuously making adjustments so they don’t run into each other, and everyone goes on their way. That is how power should work in society, when you move towards your goal and you don’t block people from reaching their goal. Of course there is a dance you have to do, you have to follow the rules agreed upon by society to prevent collisions, but we all do this because it’s better for everyone if you don’t collide.
“What happens when people do collide? That’s violence. Violence is the result of power that’s gone out of control, whether it was on purpose or not. You’ve impacted someone else and derailed them from their goal (and here we have to assume that everyone’s goal is good – we are not talking about criminals or anything). The thing to understand here is that violence is not normal. We accept the risk that any of us can make a mistake when wielding our power; mistakes happen. But it’s a mistake, it’s not what’s supposed to happen.”
So, power and violence: power is moving towards your goal, and violence is having your movement derailed either by an external force, or your own inability to control your movements (and sometimes, by not stating a clear goal for yourself; more on that later).
For now, let’s think about power on an individual level and what it means to be either in your power, or creating violence.
Power and Traditional Chinese Medicine
In the context of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), power is a state of balance and functioning; the state of imbalance is violence. What exactly is in balance or out of balance when it comes to power? And what does this mean in practical and emotional terms?
Imagine a figure skater on the ice: she’s gliding along beautifully, executing jumps and spins and landing on her feet; everything in her routine is purposeful and she is in complete control. She is a powerful skater; she’s also in balance. Now what’s the alternative? A skater wobbling along, trying to do tricks and falling every time, crashing into the side rail while going too fast; there’s nothing powerful about this scene.
What strikes me about this latter image, though, is how erratic and unpredictable this skater is; he may be expending a lot of effort, but to no end. Worse yet, oh, he’s gonna break something! He’s either gonna hurt himself, or heaven forbid, collide with another skater and take them out with him. That’s violent.
How does this work on an emotional level? Well, let’s take Earth, the element of care. When a mother’s earth element is balanced, she is caring, nurturing, and able to fulfill the needs of her family. She’s dropping you off at the airport for vacation, consoling you after a bad breakup, making your favorite dinner for your birthday. She is part of multiple Care Cycles even beyond the immediate family and is often the hub of all this caring activity. Everything and everyone around her is organized, and therefore she never feels overwhelmed. That’s powerful.
What happens when someone’s Earth is imbalanced? All this caring goes haywire: she’s trying to feed you, but she’s force-feeding you when you’re not hungry; she’s concerned about your dating life and has already set you up on a blind date with her college roommate’s second son; she completely rearranges your kitchen because it doesn’t meet her ergonomic standards. You want to say, “Mom, stop. Just stop.” How exhausting! She clearly has an imbalanced Earth element, and she’s inflicting all this on the people around her. That’s what we’re calling violence: it may not be physically hitting someone over the head, but you feel pretty beat up after running into an imbalanced person.
Power and Our Snake and Sage Brains
There is another angle from which we should consider power and violence: our Snake and Sage Brains. Remember, our Snake Brain is reactionary and doesn’t think things through; it responds to the patterns it recognizes and acts reflexively. The Snake Brain has no doubts about how to act, no hesitation about whether it’s correct. If power is about being able to move towards your goal, then the Snake Brain cannot hold power since it doesn’t even have the ability to set goals; the Snake Brain only thinks about the now.
In order to set goals, you have to have a concept of time, and there’s only one part of the brain that can process time: the prefrontal cortex, a.k.a., the Sage Brain. The rest of the brain can only deal with the phenomenon of time in a very rudimentary and limited way. So while your Snake Brain is useful for sending out an alarm, it’s not where we wield our power. Our power comes from being able to evaluate a situation, determine what outcome we ultimately want, and to create an achievable plan and execute it; our power comes from our Sage Brain.
When our Snake Brain sends us an alarm – like fear, worry, or anger – and we act from that place, you can be certain that you aren’t in your power. So many of us are running on the highly charged feeling our Snake Brain produces, but we need to take some time and engage our Sage Brain.
Remember that jerk who cut you off in traffic? Your Snake Brain wants you to cut him off in retaliation, or at the very least honk your horn for a real long time so he registers your anger; your Sage Brain tells you, look, you just want to get home safely, maybe it’s better if you just steer clear of that reckless driver so his violence – his inability to wield his own power – doesn’t impact you.
