I was walking around, digesting, when I met this gate. Rusty. With an ark stained through rain and time. One side was a sturdy concrete brick wall, the other one the ancient clay wall system used over centuries before concrete came into the country. It wasn't just a two dimensional gate. In and out. It also connected the old ways with the new ways.
Power is not to push the gate open - many people can do that -, but to decide what is on the other side.
That thought came to me as I was observing it. And I examined that thought on my way back home. Asking myself why it came to me. What it meant to me. Why it even crossed my mind.
Embrace the impotence.
I hated being powerless for such a long time. I was confronted with it since childhood. Everyone in my family being sick and having big problems, and there I was, seemingly unable to help, and walking through life so healthy, so easy, without much trouble other than theirs. I couldn't heal them. I couldn't carry them. I couldn't help them.
But I did.
I was there. The little things. Mowing the lawn. Listening. Hugging. I know now that I carried a whole lot. It took me to move an ocean away to realize that. I wielded a power that is beyond most peoples' perceptions these days.
Empathy.
It's definitely not my favorite power. I do enjoy my economical power a lot more. Or my physical one. Or my intellectual one. I'm quite powerful in my little ecosystem, I admit. Empathy is not a pleasant power. It hurts. Especially if not combined with the other powers mentioned. Because one only suffers with the others, without being able to do anything.
Sometimes, that's enough.
I'm in a powerless position myself. Those who read my blog know about the situation with my daughter and her mother, going on for 8 years now. I never had the power to change that. But I did have other powers, which I developed mostly because of my impotence.
Patience.
I endured. I waited. I documented. I built a relationship so strong to Lily. Strong enough to now, that she's been taken away again, trust in it to prevail. I know that I'll hug her again, be with her again, no matter what. Even though I don't have the power to enforce it directly. It's there. And it won't go away.
Just wait and see.
And that's the hardest part. It's easier to act than to wait. Than to trust. I'm a maker, someone that finds solutions, actively. I can't just sit around, even though that's what it takes to make the strategy that I chose work out. Ironically, that's just what I need to do.
Take away the power by not acknowledging it.
I should be suffering. I should be in pain. Agonizing. Punching my fists bloody against the empty truck wheels, like I did 7 years ago, when it happened the first time. But I'm not. I'm rather calm (still surprised myself by that). I do my part, send voice messages and videos to Lily via her mom's phone, read her books to her. I'm not fighting.
Punching into the void.
It's kind of Kung Fu and all the derivatives. The punch can't hurt you if you're not where it lands. And on top of that - punching into the void causes imbalance for the attacker. They expect to hit something. Imagine hitting a wall and suddenly it goes all platform 9 3/4 on you.
Accepting the impotence is power.
Knowing your own limits is. Knowing when to stop. Knowing when to push. Knowing when trust. Knowing your limits. Not to give up, oh no. But all that power can only be a positive force in the world if you have that one, singularly important one, that power that decides it all:
To control yourself.
What are your thoughts about this topic? Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI.
Post written for the #weekend-engagement by 
This is my response to:
Yeah all of them and none of them. I think. I did live through the big black outs here 2 years ago, and we made it through by timing the sourdough, the kneading and the baking time as well as we could. It wasn't fun, but as every emergency situation quite insightful and a learning experience. Our bread is better for it.
And as for changing the world - I'd make people more considerate again. At the moment, we're in a downward spiral from that. I'm quite sure that as soon as people are considerate of others again, everything will turn into an upward spiral.
Thank you for reading!
