Tribes - A secret key to living in this world

 

Two Spiders: People who know how the game works. 
From Left to Right: Lord Varys and Lord Baelish

The power of the tribe cannot be stressed enough. We're run by tribes whether we realize it or not. In the highest dimensions of government, in businesses, at school, and at university, people make deals behind closed doors based, not on which idea is best for the system, or for all people within it, but on what's best for the tribe that holds power within these relatively short-sighted meetings.

Let me break that down a little:

 You would think, wouldn't you, that the best man/woman for the job is the person who gets the job? That if you've studied your whole life for an opportunity in a highly prized arena of opportunity, you'll be the one to get in on it first. However, what I'm telling you is that, if this is how you have been brought up, (and there's no polite way to put what I'm about to say) you've been lied to your whole life by well-meaning parents, guardians, teachers or whoever formed your basic understanding of the world.

Especially the aspects that we all need for basic emotional survival are guarded with jealousy, even hoarded if you will. The person we wish to date, the business we wish to conduct; these are all markers of a successful person, not just materially, but emotionally, and they are likewise a recurring wound in those who don't have them.

There are individuals who amass beautiful women to themselves, and who amass money based on who, not what they know, and who amass power, not as an accident of chance, but in a very calculated manner that puts under their feet the people who have nothing, and keeps them there. 

Simply put, the tribe of one, or the loner, stands little to no chance in the world as a maverick entrepreneur or as a breaker of the mold. In the case of Elon Musk, for whom the term "Maverick" has often been ab-used, this term is particularly ironic. He is using the mythology of Nikola Tesla to create this impression, but I assure you, there isn't such a purist model of power available, and there certainly wasn't in Nikola Tesla's time. He was thoroughly underappreciated and exploited for his genius. Musk has been part of many, many tribes, from the rich tribes of Johannesburg, South Africa where he grew up, to the high-tech tribes of Silicon Valley Giants in the US. 

And if you're an individual armed with this knowledge, the good news is that you're one step ahead of all the other unassuming individuals who really are sincere and are doomed to an early grave on account of their sincere hopes and diligence. You have a chance of making it as a Little Finger or a Lord Varys, or in renaissance terms, as a kind of Leonardo Da Vinci. That is to say, you have the hope at least, of operating above it all; of operating from a wider vista of power, and seeing all the tribes and  manipulating their weak points, their desires, and their myriad incompetencies and knowing how best to manipulate them based on their greatest weakness: pure, craven selfishness, which - let's face it - is a hideous aspect of humanity which isn't going away soon.

So if you have ever wondered why you were invited in the open by a group of "friends" and then secretly disinvited when the time came closer, or why you were told by a girl or guy that the date was on, but then after some time passed, it never happened, now you know why. Your pain has been used to make you feel small, and in doing so, someone has asserted tribal power over you - a power which, though totally imaginary, is nonetheless all too real!