Function of Power

  

“All things are subject to interpretation.

Whichever interpretation prevails

at a given time is a function

of power and not truth.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

 

There are two stories I would like to share.  One is about coal miners and the other is about a railroad worker.  Both stories reflect how personal perceptions frame our reality.

Several years ago, there were five coal miners trapped beneath rubble from a mine explosion.  There was no way for the men to get themselves out, but they knew men would be working from the outside to rescue them.  Each of these men had worked the mine for years, and they knew they had very restricted time before there would not be enough oxygen for them to breathe in order to survive.  One man passed early from injuries received during the explosion.  Of the remaining four, only one wore a watch.  He knew the men needed to be encouraged to breathe slowly and to remain calm as they were all aware of time slipping by.  The man with the watch began giving inaccurate time.  He lengthened the time between intervals giving the other men hope of survival.  He assured the men time was passing more slowly as they had nothing to distract themselves.  He continued to expand the time between his reports while they all waited for the rescue team.  When the men were actually rescued three out of five men had survived.  The injured man had died early on and the other man to die was the man with the watch who knew they had run out of time.  The other three had continued to believe in the inaccurate time.  In their perception, survival time had not yet expired and so they lived.

As a young man, he loved to listen to trains fly through his little town.  At night he would listen to the clacking of steel upon steel and the shifting of the old freight cars in rhythm with the speed of the train.  The man left his small town and was relieved to be hired by the railroad.  He was hired to go down the long line of box cars to clean and inspect them.  He worked alone and loved the freedom of setting his own pace.  He was almost finished with the refrigeration car when he realized he had inadvertently locked himself in.  His perception was no one would ever hear him outside of the padded box car and  no one would check on him as he worked alone.  He sank down in the corner of the car wondering how he could keep himself warm while deep inside he knew he would never survive.  Inside a refrigerated car there were three stages ... cool, freeze, frozen and he already began to feel the freezing  cold.  He wondered how long he would be able to tolerate the dropping temperatures.  When the man was later found dead in the box car, he was rolled into a ball as though trying to keep himself warm.  It was also discovered that the box car had not been appropriately connected, so the refrigeration never began the cool, freeze, frozen process.  The only thing cooling the car was the outside night air.

These stories help us to remember that our perceptions are not necessarily truth.  Our perceptions power us to move in the direction we expect to go.  If we get up of a morning and say, "This is going to be a horrible day."  It will be just as we predicted.  We must leave our minds open to entertain various perceptions and gravitate towards the ones that are positive and hopeful.