How The Powerful Operate

By Leo Gura - February 7, 2025

Rich and powerful people often do not have an ideology or a consistent set of beliefs. Their ideology is pragmatism and opportunism. They will believe and say whatever they need to in the moment in order to get more wealth and power. This is vital to keep in mind when trying to understand and predict their behavior.

Acquiring and wielding enormous power and wealth is virtually impossible without constantly lying, both to others and yourself. Rich and powerful people lie so fluently and constantly that it doesn’t even register in their minds, it’s just the only way they know how to live. Their entire lifestyle and mental structure is oriented around it. So there actually is an important psychological difference between ordinary people and megalomaniacs. Megalomaniacs do not think like you or me. They have sold their souls to the devil for power, wealth, and status. This is a fundamental decision they made early in life and never looked back. Truth and integrity does not exist for them, even though of course they tell themselves otherwise. But it is crucial that you understand that rich and powerful people are literally incapable of doing the Actualized work because their life would implode. I want you to really understand and appreciate the cost of the Actualized work, and why it is so rarely done. You have to give up aspirations for serious power, wealth, fame, and sex in the name of truth. Very, very few people will do that because they do not comprehend the value of truth while the value of those others things is obvious.

Truth is antithetical to power. Contemplate why.

Note: Of course, do not make the silly mistake of thinking that poor and lower class people are champions of truth. No, no, no. Lower class people also have a shocking disregard for truth, but for other reasons, usually reasons of ignorance and low intelligence. Lower class people are usually more honest and authentic than the powerful, but they are still profoundly ignorant. One can be a very authentic and honest ignoramus. This is why populism is a canard. On the other hand, the powerful are more cunning, conniving, and manipulative.

So who cares about truth then?, you might ask. Basically, no one. But there are degrees of selling your soul to the devil and you should distinguish between them.

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