The Power of Arrogance

Real power is not arrogant; phony power is -- and inevitably betrays itself in total humiliation and annihilation when left to go unchecked, unimpeded, and uncorrected, and so when realizing such phoniness, it is best to let it run its ruinous course by their perpetrators -- because that is the only cure for their affliction, and not convincing them otherwise to be more humble.

That never works with the arrogant. They cannot self-correct but must be humbled by more powerful others, as well as more ruthless and arrogant others. That is their fate and destiny.

Arrogance is the power of people who cannot deal with success (or failure), and so will turn every silver lining into a dark cloud -- and live in perpetual darkness because they really don’t want to see -- especially their own reflections in the mirror anymore. If they take a good, hard look at themselves, it is obvious that their features are pulled in a thousand different directions all at once, looking like a person on the verge of exploding in a thousand different directions at the next appropriate trigger.

When victory is near, they claim it is they who are wholly responsible; in defeat, they claim to know nothing of what happened but are avowed to find the right person to blame. So when things go wrong, they do not look for reasons why they went wrong -- but only who to blame because they have no idea what went wrong. Neither do they know what went right -- and how to replicate that success -- if they had to, starting from nothing. That would require the ability to manufacture something rather than simply steal it.

What seemed like good fortune was thrust upon them -- and they interpreted that to mean they were favored by the gods. If good fortune continues, they think they are the gods -- and never that they are fortunate, blessed and lucky.

Winning all the time is not necessarily the best thing that can happen to anyone -- because they never have to learn to deal with failure as well as success, and that makes them callous to those who are not as “successful” as themselves. The truly powerful learn what it is like to experience and deal with both failure and success, so they can recognize and deal with each appropriately, realizing how they can change one into the other. The arrogant, merely and always go into denial, rage and self-loathing.

That is what makes them powerful -- and not like the many fools, trembling in trepidation that they will revealed, for what they really are -- and even passing laws, edicts and societal conventions, that nobody should ever be able to tell the difference.