I think of power as the ability exchange one’s own energy across space and time. I think when we say power, we are fundamentally talking about the ability to exchange. From my vantage point exchange feels a little more precise. It’s really just semantics. I mean it the same way.

I think of Nietzsche’s “will-to-power” as “will-to-exchange”. He was definitely onto a very deep truth with that observation.

“If you want to be a slave in life, then continue going around asking others to do for you. They will oblige, but you will find the price is your choices, your freedom, your life itself. They will do for you, and as a result you will be in bondage to them forever, having given your identity away for a paltry price. Then, and only then, you will be a nobody, a slave, because you yourself and nobody else made it so.”

Terry Goodkind, The Pillars of Creation (Sword of Truth)