12.12.2006

power play

i just finished watching the movie capote, a dark peek into the making of truman capote's opus, in cold blood. one thing that struck me while watching is that only one thing motivated almost every character in the movie...power. the desire to have it - the fear of losing it.

isn't that true for so many people? power in itself can be represented by tons of things - influence, money, family, enlightenment, even death itself. if every single person on the face of the earth felt empowered in some significant way, nothing heinous would ever happen.

those guys that killed the kansas family "in cold blood" were exercising their power. that's all. nothing else. they had the ultimate power over those people and were so afraid that they'd lose it, they took steps to prevent that family from ever turning the tables on them.

there was no dark, twisted motivation. from what i can tell, their childhoods were just as screwed up as the rest of us. no mental illness threw them into a state of unreality. it was a quest for power...sociopathy, it's been called.

truman capote drank and drugged himself into death on my birthday in 1986. yes, we all have ultimate power over ourselves, yet only the very few realize it. what a shame.

4 comments:

Tracey said...

This is almost along the lines of part of today's OM. No one has the power over our life's foundation. Gosh I liked today's OM. :)

lattégirl said...

But we have to power to wound utterly. If we divert that, we have the power to heal, but only as far as the recipient is willing to receive. Therefore, power resides in give and take. A conundrum at the best of times.

StaceyG said...

True! I like to think that if everyone felt positively empowered, no one would use that power to wound. Perhaps I am an idealist.

StaceyG said...

Tracey - I love the OM. It tells me what I need to hear all the time!!!!