Sometimes i wonder about humanity. Other times, i just sit in awe, getting all warm and fuzzy as my brain goes to sleep and something else wakes from a slumber.

I don’t remember how it started, but in a flash i was in a fight with all of them. Luckily, they subscribed to the Hollywood version of a scuffle, and stood surrounding me while one by one they attacked. Obviously, most of them had no idea why their freckled leader had ordered the ambush, and retreated swiftly once i punched them clean in the face.

It was like a computer game. The ginger kid – Lee – was the boss level, and as he finally approached and we danced around, we both knew that i would beat him. That is until his 11-year-old mountain of a brother, suprised me from behind, grappling me into a full-nelson.

Lee ran at me, and performed a Liu Kang kick into my stomach, winding me for the first time in my life. I thought i was going to die, as i fell to the floor, gasping for air while the gang dispersed. I did not die though. Just the innocent bits.

I joined the gang, and began inflicting grief of all sorts, because it made sense at the time to be part of a strong group.

Suffice to say, my thoughts have changed in the several years since. In retrospect, the reason i lost my first fight, was not because i cried, or because i fell to the floor, but because i became fearful of defeat, and became a person who hid my fear within the fear of others. With guidance, i would have learned that truth much earlier.

Everything we get, outside the free gifts of nature, must in some way be paid for.

- Henry Hazlitt

Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.

- Frederick Douglass

While at a house party a few months back, a girl cornered me with a nice bottle of wine, and started telling me about ‘The Secret’ – a bestselling book and film . I sat and listened, sipping my wine, as the well-educated City financier explained the principles of universal attraction, without any sense of irony .

It was a treat. A true dissertation on the worst kind of magical thinking . Essentially, this chick (and many of her friends) believe that they are telekinetic, and can receive whatever they want just by hoping for it. Needless to say, i re-filled my glass and excused myself. I’d heard about voodoo before.

This ‘universal attraction’  idea is at the core of many belief systems and comforts people who feel powerless. Religion has made a business out of it. But in practice, it does not work.

If you’re falling out of an airplane, the law of gravity trumps the law of attraction.

- Vinny Verelli

In truth, the real goal of positive thinking is positive thinking. However, at some point, it always becomes clear that thinking alone is futile. In response, weak-willed people then say something like: ‘It wasn’t meant to be.’

One of the most famous legends around this relates to Muhammed, the founder of Islam, who replied to being asked to give proof of his teachings by ordering Mount Safa to come to him. When the mountain did not comply, Muhammed raised his hands toward heaven and said, ‘God is merciful. Had it obeyed my words, it would have fallen on us to our destruction. I will therefore go to the mountain and thank God that he has had mercy on a stiff-necked generation.’

If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad will go to the mountain.

- Francis Bacon

Such is life. The universe does not act on your behalf, and never will. You must take action, and be prepared for the pitfalls and opportunities that your positive thinking may have missed. To do this, your imagination must be informed, and your thoughts must consider alternative scenarios. In that way, you are aware of what is improbable. And you do not waste time and energy on the impossible. Ambition alone does not create success. This is the real secret.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

- Carl Sagan

ps: If the legend is true, I suspect that from the moment that Muhammed knew that the mountain would not come to him, he used the remaining time spent looking skywards trying to figure out how he would achieve his real objective: retaining power. Western nations are doing the same thing right now, as they attempt to resuscitate the economy.

credit: kimonomania

@mparks says 48 Laws of Power  = YUCK

Can’t say that i haven’t heard that reaction before. People tend to assume that any interest in human nature, strategy or power, is nefarious in some way. But these same people complain about the way that politicians manipulate and the media ‘controls’ us. They identify the symptoms, but are unwilling to understand the problem.

Some people like watching the magic trick. So do i. But i also like to understand how the trick was done. Not necessarily because i want to perform the trick, but because i’m curious.

Anyhow, so long as the Godfather is still voted the No.1 film of all-time, i don’t believe that people aren’t interested in the concepts of strategy and power. They are. They just don’t want to delve too deeply into the mind of a Don. Or a Pope. Or a President-Elect. It could shatter some of their dearly held illusions.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

- Carl Sagan

I had begun to see a new map of the world, one that was frightening in its simplicity, suffocating in its implications. We were always playing on the white man’s court, Ray had told me, by the white man’s rules. Whatever he decided to do, it was his decision to make, not yours, and because of that fundamental power he held over you, because it preceded and would outlast his individual motives and inclinations, any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.

In fact, you couldn’t even be sure that everything you had assumed to be an expression of your black, unfettered self – the humour, the song, the behind-the-back pass – had been freely chosen by you. At best, these things were a refuge; at worst, a trap.

Following this maddening logic, the only thing you could choose as your own was withdrawal into a smaller and smaller coil of rage, until being black meant only the knowledge of your own powerlessness, of your own defeat. And the final irony: should you refuse this defeat and lash out at your captors, they would have a name for that, too, a name that could cage you just as good. Paranoid. Militant. Violent. Nigger.

- Barack Obama (from "Dreams From My Father")

Thomas Jefferson Johnson: Terry, tell me something. With all this money coming in from both sides, how does anything ever get done?
Terry Corrigan: It doesn’t. That’s the genius of the system.

"The Distinguished Gentleman "