Power Is Not Something You Chase. It's Something You Remember

I wasn’t looking for a philosophy on power when I pressed play.

It started with a lyric—quiet, almost unassuming:

“Power is not something you chase, it is something you remember.”

The line comes from Before the World Names You by IYANA, a song that feels less like music and more like a meditation—especially for those within the African diaspora. As the song unfolds, it calls on names like Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie, Wangari Maathai—figures who did not wait to be told they were powerful. They moved as if they already were.

And that’s what stayed with me.

Not just the lyric—but the question underneath it:

What if power is not something we gain… but something we’ve forgotten?

We are taught that power is something to pursue.

To chase it.

To earn it.

To prove ourselves worthy of it.

It is framed as external—held by institutions, granted by recognition, measured by status, and maintained through dominance. In this model, power is scarce. If one has it, another must not. To rise is to surpass. To lead is to stand above.

But this understanding raises a question rarely asked:

If power must be chased, who decides where it lives?

The Architecture of Chasing

To chase something is to accept distance between you and it. It assumes lack. It positions power as something always slightly ahead—something you have not yet become.

This is not neutral. It is structural.

Because if power exists outside of you, then:

it can be defined by others

granted by systems

withheld as leverage

And in that arrangement, the individual remains in pursuit—never in possession.

What appears as ambition can become dependency.

Power That Requires Disadvantage

Many dominant systems define power through hierarchy—through conquest, control, and accumulation. In these models, power does not simply exist; it must be secured, often at the expense of others.

But this leads to a deeper inquiry:

Is power that depends on the diminishment of others truly power—or is it control?

Control must be maintained. It requires enforcement, reinforcement, and often, distortion. It depends on keeping others misinformed, disconnected, or divided. It is not self-sustaining; it is managed.

And anything that must be constantly managed reveals its own instability.

The Role of Narrative

Systems of domination are not upheld by force alone. They are sustained by narrative.

History is rewritten. Contributions are erased. Identities are reshaped. Entire populations are taught—explicitly and implicitly—to see themselves as less than they are.

In this context, power is not only taken—it is obscured.

Because if people fully recognized:

who they are

where they come from

what they carry

…the system would face a different kind of resistance—one rooted not just in opposition, but in awareness.

Is External Power an Illusion?

If a law is only a law because people recognize it…

If a government governs because people (to varying degrees) comply…

If systems persist because participation is maintained…

Then external power begins to reveal its nature.

It is not inherent.

It is constructed.

It is contingent.

This does not make it imaginary. Its effects are real—often violent, often enduring. Wars have been fought to challenge it. Lives have been lost confronting it. Freedom, as history shows, is not free.

But even in its force, external power depends on something fragile:

It must be believed in.

It must be enforced.

It must be continuously upheld.

And that means it can be challenged.

Remembering as Resistance

To remember power is not to escape struggle—it is to change its starting point.

It is to reject the premise that power must be granted.

It is to recognize:

the ability to think independently

the capacity to define oneself

the refusal to internalize imposed limitations

This is the kind of awareness that Frederick Douglass spoke to—an understanding that once a person becomes conscious of their condition and their humanity, domination becomes more difficult to sustain.

Not impossible—but unstable.

Ancestral Continuity

For those within the African diaspora, remembering carries a deeper weight.

There were deliberate efforts to sever people from identity, culture, language, and self-definition. Forgetting was not incidental—it was enforced.

And yet, across generations, individuals emerged who did not operate from granted authority, but from internal certainty. They did not wait to be recognized as powerful. They acted as though power was already theirs.

This is not anomaly. It is continuity.

To remember is to reconnect with that lineage—not to replicate it, but to recognize that the same capacity exists within you.

Power and Struggle

Remembering power does not eliminate resistance.

Systems do not dissolve simply because they are seen clearly. They may push back. They may punish. They may attempt to reassert control.

This is why history is marked by conflict—by revolutions, movements, and sacrifices. Because while power may be inherent, its expression exists within contested environments.

There is a difference between:

knowing you are free

and living in a world that recognizes that freedom

The space between those two realities is where struggle lives.

What Power Really Is

Power is not dominance.

Power is not possession.

Power is not the ability to control others.

Power is awareness in action.

It is the understanding that your identity is not assigned.

It is the refusal to measure yourself by external definitions.

It is the ability to act from that understanding—even when it is inconvenient, even when it is costly.

Power does not need to be chased because it is not absent.

It needs to be remembered—

and, in many cases, reclaimed.

Final Thought

That single lyric didn’t just sound good—it disrupted something.

It challenged the idea that power lives somewhere outside of us, waiting to be earned. It reframed power as something already present, waiting to be recognized.

And maybe that’s why it lingers.

Because once you start questioning where power actually comes from,

you also start questioning who told you where to look for it in the first place.

And from that point on,

you don’t chase it the same way again.

~Ori Alchemy