POWER of meanings // MEANINGS of power
  • About
  • Introduction
  • Browse the book
    • All the pages alphabetically >
      • A >
        • Power: Against the Flow, with the Flow
        • Animal power
        • Addiction and power
        • Absolute power
        • Anxiety and power
      • B >
        • Bureaucracy and power
        • Buddhism
        • Binary thinking
      • C >
        • Cause and effect
        • Circumstances and Power
        • Power as a chess game
        • Choice
        • (Power to) change how you see things
        • Choosing meanings
        • Consumerism
        • Corrupted by power
      • D >
        • Discovering your power
      • E >
        • Empowerment
        • Empathy and power
        • (Power to) enjoy the moment
        • Entropy and power
      • F >
        • Foucault's "power is everywhere"
        • Free will
      • G
      • H >
        • Having power and using power
        • Human brain and power
      • I >
        • Intersectionality and power
        • Improving mental abilities
        • (Power to) improve your mood
        • In control
        • Inequality
        • Influencing each other
        • Intentionality and power
      • K >
        • Knowledge and power
      • L >
        • "Power" in language
        • Language has power over us
        • Limited resources
        • Louis XIV and Absolute Power
      • M >
        • Making an effort is a prerequisite of using power
        • Marxism and the meaning of power
        • "May" power
        • Micropower: Individual power
        • Mindfulness
        • Media and Digital Literacy as Forms of Individual Power
        • (Mis)understanding of power in media texts
        • Money and Power
        • My synesthetic perception of "power"
      • N >
        • (Nature) Power of nature
      • O >
        • Power on/off
      • P >
        • Power as ability
        • Power as influence
        • Power vs. powerlessness
        • Physical power
        • Power is not a thing
        • Power of speech
        • Privilege
        • Power of the powerless
      • R >
        • Responsibility, blame and power
      • S >
        • (Power of) seeing
        • Self-awareness and power
        • Snapshot power
        • (Ability and influence in) social and non-social power
        • Socialization and power
        • (Power of) stories
        • Studying power
        • Synonyms of power
      • T >
        • Theory of micro- and macropower
      • U >
        • Using power is rewarding
      • V >
        • Vector power
      • W >
        • What is power?
        • Willpower
    • Completed pages
  • Author
    • My creative process
Why explore power?

Understanding power helps us understand ourselves—and build a better society.

  1. Power is part of every human relationship.
  2. When people seek to improve the world, questions of power inevitably arise:
    • "Whose fault is this problem?"
    • "Who is responsible for fixing it?"
    • "Who stands in the way of change?"
  3. Yet, power is often seen in overly simplistic terms: as something some people have and others lack.
    This binary thinking flattens the complexity of human relationships. Worse, it can lead to new problems in the name of solving old ones.
    ​

Instead of viewing power as a binary, we need to see it as a paradox.

Picture
Image credit: M.C. Escher, "Drawing Hands," 1948. ​​
To see power as a paradox is to recognize that no one is simply powerful or powerless.

Each of us carries within us both power and powerlessness—shaped by, and shaping, the world around us. These elements shift constantly, depending on context and relationship.


This is not an entirely new perspective. Paradoxes of power have been explored in the humanities and social sciences, in the tradition of Buddhism, as well as in more modern practices like Nonviolent Communication.* However, this project brings these threads together in a unique and evolving way—connecting insights across disciplines, practices, and everyday life.

This Website Is a Nonlinear, Ongoing Book

This website is where I’m writing a hypertextual book about power. It is non-linear by design: made up of interlinked entries that explore themes, examples, and theories from many directions.

Rather than wait until everything is complete, I’m inviting readers to follow the book as it grows. You can start with the Introduction** or this essay on Medium, or you can explore the list of completed pages on this website. I also share updates and reflections on my blog, and you can subscribe to my newsletter via my personal website.

This project began in November 2021. As I write in the time I can carve out alongside family and freelance work, the pace is intentionally slow. What you’ll find here may seem incomplete—but it’s always evolving.
Picture
Image credit: Richard Giblett

If you are not a scholar:
I aim to write in accessible language for a broad, college-educated audience. Some entries introduce key concepts or theories. Others explore real-life practices or share personal and cultural stories. Topics I explore range from parenting, education, and media to commerce, politics, and art—because power is about all of them.

If you are a scholar:
This work is rooted in interpretivism and draws from the rhizomatic research paradigm
developed by Deleuze and Guattari. The hypertext format reflects the complexity of the topic: non-hierarchical, branching, interlinked. In my view, this structure best supports inquiry into power’s layered and paradoxical nature.

Where does the name of this project come from?

“Power of meanings” reflects the idea that human relationships and behaviors are shaped by the meanings we assign to people, actions, and events. Think of Clifford Geertz’s idea that humans are “animals suspended in webs of meaning they themselves have spun.” Disentangling these webs—with patience, curiosity, and empathy—is, I believe, essential to becoming better individuals and creating more humane societies.

“Meanings of power” signals my focus on exploring the many ways we define and understand power itself—and how we relate it to concepts like agency, free will, social systems, responsibility, and blame. My aim is not to offer a single definition, but to spark deeper reflection on how we live with—and through—power.

This project builds on the theory of micro- and macropower I developed in my first book, Media Is Us: Understanding Communication and Moving Beyond Blame (2021). That theory centers on the paradoxical relationship between individuals and society: we are both shaped by and shapers of the social world.

Acknowledging this paradox does not mean ignoring power imbalances. Rather, it opens up a more flexible, honest framework for examining how power flows—within us, between us, and around us.

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*Purple links lead to pages outside of this website.
** Blue links connect between different entries of this hypertext book.
If you are interested in getting updates about this project (e.g., when new pages are published), please sign up for the newsletter on my main website.

I use AI tools as a kind of writing partner—sometimes to shape drafts, clarify arguments, or explore phrasing. But the ideas, perspectives, and direction are always my own. Every piece here is part of an evolving personal project.
  • About
  • Introduction
  • Browse the book
    • All the pages alphabetically >
      • A >
        • Power: Against the Flow, with the Flow
        • Animal power
        • Addiction and power
        • Absolute power
        • Anxiety and power
      • B >
        • Bureaucracy and power
        • Buddhism
        • Binary thinking
      • C >
        • Cause and effect
        • Circumstances and Power
        • Power as a chess game
        • Choice
        • (Power to) change how you see things
        • Choosing meanings
        • Consumerism
        • Corrupted by power
      • D >
        • Discovering your power
      • E >
        • Empowerment
        • Empathy and power
        • (Power to) enjoy the moment
        • Entropy and power
      • F >
        • Foucault's "power is everywhere"
        • Free will
      • G
      • H >
        • Having power and using power
        • Human brain and power
      • I >
        • Intersectionality and power
        • Improving mental abilities
        • (Power to) improve your mood
        • In control
        • Inequality
        • Influencing each other
        • Intentionality and power
      • K >
        • Knowledge and power
      • L >
        • "Power" in language
        • Language has power over us
        • Limited resources
        • Louis XIV and Absolute Power
      • M >
        • Making an effort is a prerequisite of using power
        • Marxism and the meaning of power
        • "May" power
        • Micropower: Individual power
        • Mindfulness
        • Media and Digital Literacy as Forms of Individual Power
        • (Mis)understanding of power in media texts
        • Money and Power
        • My synesthetic perception of "power"
      • N >
        • (Nature) Power of nature
      • O >
        • Power on/off
      • P >
        • Power as ability
        • Power as influence
        • Power vs. powerlessness
        • Physical power
        • Power is not a thing
        • Power of speech
        • Privilege
        • Power of the powerless
      • R >
        • Responsibility, blame and power
      • S >
        • (Power of) seeing
        • Self-awareness and power
        • Snapshot power
        • (Ability and influence in) social and non-social power
        • Socialization and power
        • (Power of) stories
        • Studying power
        • Synonyms of power
      • T >
        • Theory of micro- and macropower
      • U >
        • Using power is rewarding
      • V >
        • Vector power
      • W >
        • What is power?
        • Willpower
    • Completed pages
  • Author
    • My creative process