It’s generally accepted that knowledge is power. But is it, really? What if you knew something, but did nothing with it? Did you wield any more power than someone who did nothing because they didn’t know what you knew? What good was your power if you didn’t do anything with it? What good would superheroes be if they did nothing with their superpowers?

For decades, I bought into the notion that knowledge is power, like most people did, and continue to do. It was only in recent years of many protest movements, where it was pointed out that being silent on something was being complicit to it, that I realized knowledge is power to be a conditional statement rather than an absolute statement. That condition? If I used that knowledge to do something, good or bad, because power can be used in both of those ways. Otherwise, as far as I’m concerned, that knowledge I had was just something ranging in value from trivia to fodder for guilt later, with the latter depending on how much conscience I had on the topic. In other words, that knowledge I had was potential power, not power.

.

This post is one of 70 quotes I wrote, each with an accompanying essay, in my e-book and paperback Stars I Put in my Sky to Live By, on Amazon or Smashwords (choose your price including free!).