The 48 Laws of Power-Robert Greene

If, in these reviews, I am to write with a certain degree of allegiance to transparency, I must place all of my cards on the table for how this book affected me personally. Growing up, I was bullied. And as I became an adult, it only intensified in the real world. The combination of my undersized height, pale complexion, and speech impediment make me a ripe target for those who wish to add a chuckle to their day at my expense. As a kid in the neighborhood, it was mostly restricted to one very insecure individual who wore a variety of masks. When we were hanging out alone, he was a real sweetheart and (so I thought) we grew to become close friends. I remember one event in particular though that shattered my misperceived appraisal of our friendship. It was some birthday party of his where a bunch of friends from a nearby city called Lakewood—where he stayed on weekends with his Mother during the shared custody agreement of his parents—(none of which I knew) were invited. At the beginning of the week, before the party, I had let the fantasies in my mind run unabated. And to make matters worse, this boy loved to feed me a load of bullshit about what a wild time it would be and how crazy he and his friends would get, and at that gullible station in life, I naturally devoured it all. This was the summer of 1994, I was ten years old, and at the time there was a new show on MTV called "Dead at 21". In the opening episode, there was a small part where the main character goes to a party bereft of parents where House of Pain is playing on the loudspeakers, strobe lights are going off, and kids are dancing and acting crazy. You see, these boys were all 4 years my senior, and so naturally I let my mind's eye go off in a tailspin and envisioned a similar scenario. I couldn't wait. When that Saturday arrived, and one by one, his friends arrived, my hopes gradually began to erode. All (aside from one) of his Lakewood pals were nothing but locker-room jock bullies. Once one started to pick on me, the rest inevitably followed. It eventually became a dog pile, and to make it even more heartbreaking, as a means of defending his reputation, my close friend became grand Marshall to this hit parade where I was the target. He tossed aside my gift that I had bought him with distaste, initiated wisecracks at my expense, and, when interrogated by the others as to why I was even there he quipped "Oh, it's only because he brought the CD player for us to play music on." From there it became incessant. Ace Ventura had just come out and everyone was rehearsing lines from the movie, when I chimed in with a line they just told me to shut up. Eventually, as a means of getting rid of me, they decided to take a trip over to a large creek near the train tracks, where I wasn't allowed to go. I followed anyway then abandoned ship once they sifted down into the concrete underpass that I was terrified of. I went home with a shattered heart and didn't return. It was one of the most painful experiences of my childhood. In adulthood, it would continue, where I would grow to tolerate it at even greater heights—and unfortunately begin to replicate it on others whom I felt resided beneath me in the social echelon. It wasn't until 2020, when I began to take an honest inventory of my life, that I reassessed my current station and correlated it with the past. Bereft of professional therapeutic analysis, I was able to find a pattern emerge, in which I somehow found myself gravitating to similar friendships. Developing kinships with those who were more powerful than myself—both in status and in physicality—as a protective stratagem. Their tempers were far more outlandish than mine was and their hesitation to confront any opposition much less than my own. As a trade-off, I would tolerate their ball-busting no matter how malicious it grew to become. And then, in my malleable state of being, I would allow such depraved individuals to influence me to behave in a similar nature. At the time I wasn't very happy with who I was in life, so I would begin my cycle of tyranny by haphazardly picking apart individuals whom I perceived to be weaker than myself. Allowing for the potent elixir of delusional power to blind me to reality. Fortunately, after having spilled my guts so blatantly, through the self-therapy of reading and rationally founded critical thinking, I am also transparently proud to say that my home is bereft of any dart boards with caricatures of the past for me to poke lethal holes upon. There is no Steve Buscemi/Danny McGrath death list tucked away deep in a forsaken drawer. I no longer view these periodic episodes where I served as the medium for others to inflate a false sense of self with torment but with a critical eye. I honestly hold no hatred in my heart for any of them. They may not be in my life any longer, but I don't torture myself at night with fantasies of their demise either. As evidenced by countless examples of the past, those who let envy consume them (which is what was the source in most all of the cases) generally author their downfall. Robert Greene outlines this in borderline poetry in his 46th Law: "Never appear too perfect". It was Nathaniel Braden's "The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem" where I was able to peel back the layers and see what bullying is at its core and where I began to understand the reasoning behind some people's motives in attacking others unprovoked. When living a life of torment inside of a cell of one's creation, from which there is no escape, the world and everyone in it, through the bars of jealousy, grow to become alike in their ugliness. Nathaniel exposed the core, Robert Greene shows you how to strategically utilize these individuals who are cloaked in misery to your advantage. Correlating this solitary rule to my personal trips down memory lane aside. power, much like money, is a very real element in this world. One of which has been there since Biblical times and shall continue to be a long with us as human beings on the ride until the end of time. It is the barometer by which women assess potential suitors, the unspoken language by which we gauge those with whom we interact, and the pulse that moves us up and down the scales of life. Everyone can look back and recollect times when they held residence (by their perception) at either the top of the pyramid or at the bottom. In my opinion, when I do reflect on the past, I wish books like this (and Nathaniel Bredan's Six Pillars for Self Esteem) would be included within school curricula. This (aside from the Bible) is probably the most articulate guide for being able to navigate your way through the social jungles of life. Naysayers may believe Robert Greene's thorough analysis to be nothing more than a road map to becoming a conniving usurper, but I disagree. Had I been privy to such a treasure trove of information and been able to decipher the unspoken languages of social order for what they are, then I would like to believe that someone who is widely looked upon as an underling, would have been able to foresee traps, such as the ones I endured, with much greater clarity. Or at least I would have had the gumption made available to me in how to work my way out of them. The 48 Laws of Power provides details on how to navigate through every single scenario that applies to everyone, and if you wish to improve your status in life, then I highly recommend reading this book. This is my second read of Robert Greene's, the other being The Art of Seduction. If you have read any of my previous reviews, then you have seen the quotes and must know already how much I revere this author's work. It is borderline incomprehensible to me to understand where Robert was able to find the time to acquire and absorb such a wealth of information and apply it so articulately as he has done in both of the novels I read, but somehow he did it. Obviously, I barely brushed snowflakes off of the tip of the iceberg which metaphorically is this book, but that only testifies to the (no pun intended) power that lies within the pages. I hope that my snippet of harmonizing Robert's work with that of my past will inspire you, as the reader, to rush to find this book. It will change your life.

Grade: A+

Verdict: Read