what about POWER?

 

POWER. An aphrodisiac, an obsession, an addiction and a passion. An enigma, an instrument, an anathema, a panacea and a nirvana. It is a necessity. It must exist either naturally or artificially; if it does not exist it must be created. Power, the ultimate. It is fickle, nebulous and transient. It is vivid, real, looming and over-powering. It is the summit of every achievement. It is the ultimate for man. Power, oh, power, so sweet, so bitter, and so bittersweet: honey and hemlock. A contrast in scope, usage and manifestation.

Power is sweet. It is honey and lotus combined. It is sweeter when exerted over things, objects, human beings or groups of people. Like honey it attracts many insects and living entities that love sweet things. It is satisfying, pleasing and pleasant. Its production, sustenance and maintenance is as difficult as the bee’s process in honey making. Power like honey can cure. It is a panacea if well used towards solving myriad problems. It is a viable means of changing the society, re-orienting human perceptions and a force in moving communities and society forward. Power like honey can also kill. When insects fall into honey they die. When ulcers are treated with honey they disappear. When those who love power fall into his arms and traps, they lose all consciousness. They hear no other things, see no other object nor do any other things except adore, worship and cherish power. Like insects in the honey pot, they lose their consciousness and are dead to their compeers, friends and fellow beings. Like honey the owner of power is a darling and accepted in any place. He has a coterie of hangers-on and a bevy of admirers. Those who wish him well and those who love him adore him because he has got the pot of honey-power. They ring bells, which deafen him any other sound. Power, how sweet you are, or are you not the best possession one can have?

 

Power is bitter. It is gall and hemlock combined. It is bitter in its manifestation, wielding and existence. Like gall it is better to those who tastes its effects and use it. Like hemlock it is killing – though not as quick acting to its wielder. It is killing in the loneliness the power owner goes through, the gilded cage he lives in and the loss of privacy in whatever he does. It is bitter in the contradictions he faces every minute, the loss he feels when taking unsavoury and unpalatable action and the gritting of teeth when deciding on things unfavourable to his psyche and unflattering to his ego but necessary for the organisation or society he is exerting power over. Power is bitter in its effects on ties, relationship and existence of the person in power. In turns him into an anathema in the eye of those who will like to make use of him and he refuses. It is bitter because the powerful individual is a threat and a target to his reasonable opponents, or his cranky opponents. History abound with examples –  John. F.Kennedy, Murtala Mohammed, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Dele Giwa etc. of the powerful who had been snuffed out at the peak of their power and at a time when they are still endowed to do more. Their deaths are bitter to their associates, friends and enemies – they will not have them to hate again – family and those who are intimate with them. Power is bitter in the struggle for it. Nothing, absolutely nothing is sacrosanct, untouchable or free from being tainted when people are searching for and working towards acquiring power. The fallouts of power struggle is very bitter to combatants, supporters, the community and the psyche of those involved in it. The harvest after the struggle is sour and bitter to those who lose out and devastating to those connected with them. Power, what an example in bitterness can you be? Why do people get giddy on you?

Power is intoxicating. It is narcotic drug combined. It is giddy, elevating and mind expanding in its entirety. It is addictive in all ramifications. Like all addictive materials it takes you high and brings you low after a time. It is not easy to break its addiction like all other addictive materials. Its addictive power is all encompassing and more soothing to the power addict. While one can get tired or get a rethink out of trauma in the case of other addictive materials, a power addict does not get tired or have rethink. The more power he gets, the more he craves. While age and physiology can mellow and help in breaking other additions age and physiology enhances and makes a power addict to want more. The more power he has, the better his physique – eating the best food, having the best doctors and skimming the cream of existence. The longer he stays on the throne of power the more comfortable he becomes and the more the people believe he is invincible, powerful, knowledgeable and full wisdom. So a power drunk addict cannot he cured. Like alcohol, power awakens the individual’s desire to be altruistic and do good but it also takes out the verve of doing it. it deprives one much time of achieving goodness because of its entrapping and nature. The enveloping layers and the barriers around the wielder of power and those who feel the effects of his action are too many, too thick and bewildering that it is difficult if not almost too impossible to tame power and temper it towards doing good. Power, what powerful intoxicant art thou? Why do people lie, cheat, main and kill to have you and retain you?

Power is the ultimate. It is a mixture of immorality elixir and magic portion. It transforms a Lilliputian into a giant. A petty mind into a “genius: and a light weight into a tin god. It makes gods out of men. It is the summit of man’s aspiration and ambition. The crème-de-crème of all man’s dishes. It is the most tasty, most delicious and most rare. As the ultimate when one have it, it comes with the best and the highest one can think of in the organisation or society. So men are ready to lie, cheat, destroy and terminate others because of it. The history of man had been that of poisonings, assassinations and at most time’s blatant naked show of power against the powerless. The underprivileged in any orgnisation, society or community is always the cannon fodder. No reason except that power is the ultimate whip, cane and instrument of punishment. It’s the ultimate instrument of deprivation and dispossession if wielded without kindness and compassion. Power is the aphrodisiac, which turns weaklings into machos and studs. It is the ultimate orgasm. The best “jerking” a man or woman can have. It is the ultimate because it allows puny little man to play GOD for a very small time. Power what acme are you in the scheme of things, in the hands and affairs of man? What do you possess that makes you so extraordinary?

Power is a bubble. A combination of air and water. Here for some time, gone for a long time. It is nebulous. Here one possesses it a moment and simply and just casually it is gone. It is seen and then like a mist it is no more. It is a mirage, an illusion and masque. See, held touched and then is no more. It is the most transient of all things. Fleeting it is like a runner in the Olympics. Like all things in this our material existence, it is not permanent. It does not rest in the hand of one or another permanently. It comes into a man’s abode, brings along the coterie of lackeys, hangers on and sycophants, stays for some time and leaves without even goodbye or time for one to prepare. It comes with fanfare, gunshots sometimes and in a carnival mood. It leaves in a hiss without a whimper. It covers and strips without any question. In one breath it asserts hiss existence and reality, in another breath it looks like being non-existent. One minute the man with power is strutting and prancing on the stage of life at another minute power goes to another leaving him panting, a fish left belly wise on the sands of the shore. Power, oh, power, why do you exist and at the same time not existing? Why is it that you give false comfort to a man and next minute you leave him?

Power belongs to no one. A combination of the divine and the eternal. It does not come from man so it cannot stay with man. The Creator is the only one who gives power. The earthly tin gods are only living a lie and on borrowed time. When the owner decides enough is enough, power packs his load to answer the call of the creator and carry out his message. Power can never be framed since the creator did not give its secret to any man. Why then, why can’t we puny little beings called man understand this? Why do we think one have power over anything? Why do we think we can plan and dictate our own life not to talk of the lives of millions? Why do we immerse ourselves in a quicksand believing we are standing on a rock? Why do we hold tenaciously and with iron claws as if it is our birthright only? Why do we always think and believe that we are accountable to ourselves alone whenever we are in power? Why? Oh why? Why do we direct the opportunity and channel given to us by our creator to build towards destroying others and bastardising his creation?  Those in power, those juggling for power, those exerting and exercising power, is this not the time for us to critically REFLECT. We need a rethink now. Those whom the Almighty give power to either materially, financially, intellectually or in any other area, we need to THINK. The only permanent entity is our Souls and the Almighty Creator. ALL OTHER THINGS ARE TEMPORARY.