Bernie Hogan : Power is not caring who's listening

image from Laura DeLuca

Power intrigues me - scares me.  Today, a group of 20 leaders sit in a room and will make choices that will impact the world.  Yesterday, thousands of people took to the streets of London in the  G20 Meltdown's "Financial Fools Day" protest, an expression of power that they hope will convince governments around the globe to make radical changes to the economy.

Power is all around us - maybe not evenly distributed or even readily accessible.  We have real power and we know it.

I love this frame on power:

Bernie Hogan @blurky : Power is not caring who's listening

Comments

[kristen]

"Power is not caring who's listening."

I love that. We've homeschooled Mary Judah for kindergarten this year, and I'm going to continue next year as well. I often don't have a ready answer for why we're doing this, and sometimes find myself at a loss for words when a stranger asks me why.

I am always so confident when telling people why we aren't a part of the institutional church, or why I gave birth twice naturally and without any drugs, and cloth-diapered, and nursed both of our kids for 2+ years (or for that matter, why in the world we would move to San Francisco!).

When it comes to telling people why we homeschool, I don't have that same confidence. Joshua and I were talking about that a couple of weeks ago, and I was going through all the reasons why - even the ones I can't articulate well, and even the uncertainties I feel in choosing to do so anyway, and I realized that it came to this:

I believe children have power. I believe that society and most adults are afraid of the fact that children have power. I am homeschooling my daughter because I want to see her use her power to her full potential, and I don't want it hidden or bullied out of her by a system that doesn't believe she has any.

And saying that out loud is an affront to people. Other parents take it personally when you choose to homeschool your child because they feel like it's a reflection on them, except, like my blog is called, "it's not about you."

So yes, power IS not caring who's listening.

Thanks.