Losing, for many members of Mankind, is a way of life; such individuals manipulate events to a crisis, often the basic goal of standard Game behavior. The effort to manipulate is the measure of one's involvement in the Game. This effort is always the individual's best attempt at surviving the equally-intentional counter-moves by the thousands and millions of opponents doing exactly the same thing. This is true
within whatever level of class one 'belongs', and the same opposition occurs
between social or economic classes, between nations, between corporations. [You're not paranoid, they
are all out to destroy you!]
The difference between the Loser and the Winner in each such Game is that the Loser accepts that the proper ending to the Game, like a crescendo in music, is for oneself to lose. The Loser expects this all the time, and is indeed very surprised should he/she win.
This losing of the Game is somehow right and fitting, according to the False Mind, especially that of the Loser losing is part of the design. The Loser is constructed to take action by which he/she
will not win {see Sacrifice, Chapter 34}.
There is even a worse game-plan than Win-Lose, and that is the No Win or Lose-Lose scenario. In this sort of deal, you will find the martyr, the terrorist, the suicide, the batterer, the reckless practitioner of unsafe sex, the drunken driver.
For some, the False Mind happens to be designed to be a Winner; but most commonly, various parts of the individual's False Mind are designed to be Loser, while other parts may be designed to be Winner: an individual may be Winner in business or sports, and Loser in relationships, or vice versa.
The Loser is not happy, yet the False Mind gives him/her reinforcing feedback, aggressively manipulating its near-innocent victim, the Self. [When the Self knows about the Loser False Mind's dis-empowering design and still obeys its counsel, the Self is being a willing and irresponsible victim.] The possessor of the Winner False Mind, however, may not feel any better about his/her Life, and must contend with the same bogus internal advice from the False Mind as to proper action.
The Working Mind, which is the Self, must develop its potential by Act of Will only, in the face of the opposition of its local False Mind, and in the face of the opposition of most of Mankind. The local False Mind knows every way of manipulation that works on its local mind-slave YOU! [Your new Working Mind is what got you to read this next sentence after the struggle inherent in the preceding paragraphs.]
In operating in obedience to the False Mind's advice, and mis-using his/her skills and great amounts of physical and-or psychological exertion, what the Loser settles for is merely a kind of Success: Success with no benefit.
Whatever social class one plays among, the fact of the on-going Game allows one at least to exist as a player of Games: the Loser is at least a player. The effort to manage the Mega-Game [the multitude of Games in which one participates] in whatever area of Life, and the successful realization of the expected outcome, reinforces the value of the False Mind to the local and always-frightened naive pre-Working-Mind individual.
The pre-Working-Mind Self, fully contaminated by the False Mind, is afraid to make any move not sanctioned by the False Mind, based on the oft-reinforced belief that events will turn out even worse if one attempts independent action and ignores the False Mind's advice. To the Self that is contaminated by the Culture-Structure, the False Mind is the only source of advice that he/she has heretofore known, since the child was overpowered by the 'education' {Chapter 14} of the Culture-Structure and the child's ability to Think for him/herself was obliterated.
The pre-Working-Mind Self, under the thumb of the Winner version of the False Mind, is again hardly better off, except perhaps materially. The Winner False Mind is still designed strictly for Survival of the False Mind and of the Culture-Structure that has installed the False Mind and thus is opposed to any activity not related to Survival. The possessor of the Winner version of the False Mind feels dis-satisfied in Life because even the contaminated Self knows that he/she won over someone else: the Loser was dis-empowered.
In Win-Lose, somebody gets hurt, somebody is always dis-empowered.
But the Working Mind designs itself to generate Win-Win Games. That is what Empowerment is: I win and you win, and maybe some other folks, too. In the daily world, it may be necessary to keep playing the intense Win-Lose Games of business, of government, etc. but the Working Mind will make the effort enough effort so that Empowerment happens to include an empowering event in the mix: Somebody gets to win besides him/herself.
I remember one meeting at a security client's offices. One of the execs 'spun' the summary of the meeting by claiming credit for an idea that I had presented during the meeting (and was approved for implementation). There was no question in my Working Mind that the proper action was to allow him credit, to 'Be With' his usurpation of credit. My win was that he was now responsible for the implementation of my idea.
I did not plan this out in any sense. I like to enter such meetings with the intention to 'fly by the seat of the pants', to invent actions on the Existential spur of the moment, to speak rigorously from inside the conversation.
You may think that I am demonstrating achievement of some high level of mastery, bragging that I can do this wonderful thing that you too can learn to perform, like I have reached the end of the development of my mature Working Mind. I may have reached such a plateau, and so also will you, but the Working Mind will on its own perceive that more work is [always!] yet to be done. In the case of the above story, the next level for me from that plateau might be to generate more such meetings, within which to generate still further Empowerment. Always!
Okay, I have a skill, some level of expertise; but such skill is only temporary, not owned in perpetuity. The skills developed into my Working Mind remain available to me, with effort, even after long non-use; but such skills of Empowerment are more readily available to the Working Mind to the extent that such skill is in operation, to the extent that the skill is used among people, on a regular and intentional basis.
* * * *
I have Empowered myself: I have read and do read a lot, and I struggled and took the courses and tried things out in the field [of Life]. I do Empower others. And I must always strengthen my skills in Empowerment, must further develop my Working Mind. Or my Power will die.
Empowerment does not eliminate the struggle, it just makes the struggle worth the effort.
Not to Empower leaves one not fulfilled. There is no alternative or substitute: Empowerment of oneself [of one's Self] and of others is the only action that produces Satisfaction in Life. The challenge of Life, the purpose of the Working Mind, is that lots of Empowerment produces a Life That You Love, one where Fulfillment and Excellence and Satisfaction are a daily occurrence.
* * * *
The lucky few among the Winners of the world are the Golden Ones, the few members of Mankind who have developed such that their Working Mind [or the equivalent] is fully operational, by inheritance or some such. They seem to be almost never dis-empowered by an internal False Mind voice. However, the near-Golden Ones who merely arrived with a semi-enlightened or semi-empowering internal False Mind, or even a Winner False Mind, still must deal with the common problem of dissatisfaction, only to a lesser degree.
I am not one of these Golden Ones.
But perhaps you or those you love directly will attain this enlightened state. Or perhaps your children or students or employees in this life, not any other will evidence the Empowerment that permeates the very air around a Self when that Working-Mind-Self is empowering him/herself, even when merely taking the first steps to developing further one's newly-constructed Working Mind.
More effort, more Empowerment. More Self-Empowerment, more Empowerment in the lives of those inside one's orbit.
* * * *
One of the milder paradoxes of the Working Mind phenomenon, of enlightenment, of Empowerment is that the effort to empower one's Self to develop the Working Mind proceeds at a more rapid pace when one's intention, and one's attention, are directed to the Empowerment of others.
It is not that some measurable, physical quantity of Empowerment is 'given' to another, like the Old Gods bestowing a boon for Mankind. That is the old model and no longer works in Reason. Whatever the gods and-or Nature intended for Mankind, that has already come to pass: the Old Gods are bankrupt and have no more use. Mankind must survive on its own from this time forward, must make use of all that it possesses in the Now, for there will be no outside intervention. Mankind's potential will be fulfilled
only if Mankind acts in concert to bring its potential into existence.
Mankind, collectively but also individually, must will itself to develop Consciousness {next chapter} and to will into existence progress toward the mature Working Mind. Mankind's greatest asset, for the survival of
Homo sapiens sapiens, is its intellect. Properly educated, the intellect will use Reason to replace the False Mind of dis-empowerment.
There is only one direction to go in the fulfillment of Mankind's Highest Value. By choosing Higher Values those based on a Commitment to Empowerment the developing Working Mind brings into existence Empowerment also for those he/she contacts.
It is only in the act of Empowerment that Empowerment exists. One cannot store it up, like karma or entries in Saint Peter's ledger. One cannot give it away, like some object. One must do Empowerment repeat: one must
do Empowerment for it to exist in the world. How one knows that Empowerment occurred is that some person is now empowered.
Your job is to develop your Working Mind, which is designed to Empower others. Do just some small Act of Empowerment a few times a week; then a few times each day, and Life becomes completely fulfilling.
I did Empowerment. I am Empowerment.
The purpose of this Life can be said to be: To Empower.
[copyright 1999 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]
The preceding is an excerpt from Chapter 12 of my forthcoming book, "Working Minds: A Philosophy of Empowerment".
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