From my journal:
24 April 2000
Often when people speak of having power they are speaking of having an ability to produce fear in others and coerce them to one's will. This can be by means of either threat of pain or by a promise to remove pain if only we accede to the tyrant's wishes. So power has come to be associated with having the privelege of administering these systems of reward and punishment.
This sort of power is weak, as it is totally dependent on having others to reward or punish. It depends on the enslaved parties not realising the meaning of true personal power: the ability to choose and to act. To act on behalf of one's own principles and values regardless of external promises or boon or bane from others.