The power struggle. The struggle for power.
I partake in the ongoing enterprise of entertainment.
A woman who most likely was new to airplane traveling follows her carry-on to an above compartment, insisting instead that the carry-on be placed above her regardless of that area being already full.
Another woman speaks loudly under her breath, suggesting to hurt the insistent woman if she allegedly continued to hit her with the personal bag she was carrying around.
Gibberish can be heard continue intermittently throughout the flight.
As we wait to exit, men of one race stare down the still gibberish woman, seemingly short of one regrettable physical action toward the alleged bag-swinging woman who claimed to the flight attendant on her way out that she had already been hit twice by the other, thankful that she had “gone to church” the day before as “surely the devil” was on the plane and had come at her.
My husband makes sure to place me ahead of the gibberish woman as we walk out of the plane, those protective eyes of his so familiar to me.
The gibberish woman, now walking behind my husband, gives her piece of final words to the same flight attendant (I’m quite certain, happily) greeting us our farewells.
As we await boarding for transport, one supposed head assistant expresses disagreement with the transport driver, expressing his disappointment with a scold for all close to hear.
All this to observe within one recent flight.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
There’s this other cliche, too. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
(I actually wrote a mellow-dramatic song relating to this connection.)
My husband, following my jokes to follow on all that I witnessed, put a closure to my own healing jabbers.
We only saw and heard parts of everything. We have no idea of what could have been said and done before.
Words of wisdom we’ve both grown to perspectively gather and understandably share.
That power struggle. Or, is it more that struggle for power?
There are the defensive triggers and then, there are the ego triggers. The latter usually having developed from years of being the underdog. I have witnessed these human transformations. I have gathered and am aware of a few myself.
There is the war we see on the outside. Then, there is the war within each of us, enriched in some of us like Uranium-235. Selah.
I recall about two years ago laughingly noting to some boys horse playing before dismissal that if air was the only thing left to play with, they would find a way to battle each other with that, too.
As if I threw the challenge in the air, I returned back next year with a welcoming presentation of shadow-boxing, where from anywhere across the room, two could box each other using gestures.
OMG. You can only laugh (after some redirects) at how incredibly bright a mind can be to create anything even from what many would see as nothing to exist.
A new group of students and yet, the challenge must have been passed on, just for me to witness, again, the power of mind and matter.
Shadow-boxing. Fun and enjoyable for students. An extra learning distraction in any classroom.
We thinketh. We acteth. We walketh toward. We findeth.
What? That all depends on what we started.
All things created have a ramification due to each having been individually given potential to become so much more.
One moment, what was to be part of a solution becomes part of a problem. One moment, what is part of healing becomes part of the hurt.
AI, what is referred to as artificial intelligence, is looking more like alien intellect to me. There are what I will call “ghost riders” (or, hmmm… writers?) now that are quietly flipping the script of our tomorrow. I am convinced even these individuals aren’t too sure of what is to follow next. However, as I ask overview questions, I am sensing stealth moves attempting to infiltrate the minds of all of us.
Whence AI is created by putting all input together to create output, quantum life understands problems by already being the problem.
The power struggle. The struggle for power.
How can anyone not understand the constitutional AI concerns of great minds such as Dario Amodei and Demis Hassabis?
Have we ever ignored voices of concern before?
Einstein and Oppenheimer both understood possible consequences and while one may have tried to stop everything at the immediacy of realizing what the mind started, another pursued thereafter.
Those who knew of the possibilities continued the race.
E = mc^2
If not me, then, who? misconstrued and misplayed at its finest.
If created from the omnipotent and omniscient One, it only makes sense how we each are incredible creators ourselves to a point where we start to go beyond our own predictions of possibilities.
The fruit does not fall that far from the tree. Cliche check on that one, too.
Many of our thoughts are innocuous to start. Or, perhaps, we are okay with the not-so-innocent mental concoctions when seemingly controlled. And, yet, because we are each powerfully made, there are those who then channel possibilities of a creation differently from another mind.
That pencil in a classroom or toothbrush in your bathroom? Innocuous? In whose hands? For what purpose?
Uranium-238? Helpful. Take away 3? Add Pu?
For my enriched, you give me back energy we don’t have but need.
Before that, there was the agricultural basket wanting to free itself from the hand that thought to hold onto it for life.
As Snoop Dogg explained the game of life quite to the point, You got to get yours, but fool, I got to get mine.
We suggest NO WAR. Understandable.
Even those building for defense hope to never have to put any to use. But that WHAT IF cannot be ignored for those who understand the struggle and thus, fight for power.
So, an innocuous pencil and toothbrush finds itself in a different environment… not so innocuous.
These wars all around, what I call, When Arguments Rise, can only be opposition of the feather on the actual scale of things that we see culminating growth from its start.
Perhaps at a build-for-power level, WAR as we see it today is- Weapons. Armament. Reciprocity.
It is not so much what we have but what we do with what we have that changes things. Yes?
It is the actions of our thoughts that make our side of the scale light or heavier. Yes?
“War is ugly!” My Mama cried out over and over as a young child, seeing what she had only envisioned to be giants within the last three years running and hiding during World War II, the emaciated Japanese soldiers coming out of the jungles.
The aftermath of war… destruction and death aside from claimed victory.
Can we live without such possibility (again), however?
Even Albert Einstein would perhaps look upon all men before shaking his head. (Not to discredit the powerful minds of women to create havoc as well here.)
Problems to solutions to problems to solutions. Power. Struggle. Power. Struggle.
I recall my high school math teacher suggesting population elimination with the occurrence of the HIV virus. It was a friendly debate with Adam in our math class.
I listened. I grasped the notion. Accidental or intentional. Believable both ways.
This silent balance Earth needs from time to time must allow calamity.
Allow one to build, you say?
Okay.
To protect what is yours to protect at the taking away safety and protection of others?
Better yet, profit from others who desire more to do the same?
We protect our own family within. Something to potentially hurt others beyond need or reasonable cause for leverage?
Place a pencil or a comb in the hands of one whose intentions are not to write something or straighten their hair sometime soon?
I walked with the valedictorian during my senior commencement, both of us given the fortune to speak our final thoughts among our class members.
Never having met the valedictorian’s parents but only seeing them walk out one day from our math classroom apparently having just spoken to our math teacher, I could only note their dedication having learned that both came in to have their daughter’s math B grade changed to an A.
The magna-cum-laude, one who could have continued to be a great friend of mine had we not been socially, economically, and culturally divided, quietly had my admiration and vote as top of our class.
I laughed to myself hearing that she would be awakened in a classroom to still answer a question.
Somehow not crossing our paths in high school classes at the end of our years, I could only relate myself to the sleeping habits, I working 3-10 pm night shifts before many days of school.
At least her name started with an “S”, I thought. Having your name as Anne caused me to awaken at articles and conjunctions an and and several times in class.
While I respected our not-so-surprising valedictorian, strong-headed and competent in her stance, giving her the honor of undoubtedly a well-earned academic title, I still hear her claim in my ear today during our Law and Society class how even if she had a chance to a gun to take the life of an assailant, she wouldn’t, due to her strong values against weapons.
I was tired as usual and most likely half asleep (as usual) but quickly heard myself rebut, “Not even if your mom was getting raped in front you, you wouldn’t?” (Yep. I was that straight-shooter.)
Respectfully side-eyeing me while remaining her posture and gaze at our teacher, she paused and dragged an answer, “Yeah.”
That pause and dragging? That’s those moments where even then, before I knew the term, psychology, existed, convinced me she hadn’t thought that far.
I biasly in my head thought, “Not a chance.” (And, I believe, resumed back to a nap with perhaps eyes sparsely open.)
Be careful what you suggest or ask for is what I, in my golden years, have acquired as wisdom now.
Recently, I found myself giving into one of those masseuses offering a quick massage at a kiosk following days of roaming around at another city.
As she pressed her arms against my back, I remarked that she can press harder.
All I heard was a calm and quiet, “Okay” before I felt her plant both her legs behind me as she presumed to place one of her elbows on my back.
Suddenly, I felt my hands gripping the arm rest as my face pushed deeper into the cushion.
I laughed to myself, consoling my immediate urge to take her elbow off my back, repeatedly chiming in my head, “Think- It’s not as bad as child birth. It’s not as bad as child birth!”
She would say from time to time, “So many knots!” as she continued to alternate elbows to kneed those knots out.
All I could do was mumble, “Mmhmm” as I continued to grip the arm rest for dear life like my husband’s hand whenever I pushed out one of our children into this world.
When she finished, I said my thank you, grateful to still be in one piece walking away.
I asked for it.
War. No war. Do we know what we are actually asking for?
Lock the door or leave it unlocked or, why not, wide open?
And, if someone openly stated to rid of us, do we say, “Okay”?
The power struggle continues all around. The struggle for power thus, remains.
While we build with one hand, what would Nehemiah suggest we have in the other?
Even the good for the good understand.
