Gestalt - very important term. not really sure why. It somehow ties in with grok. One can know an immense amount about a subject but not grok it..and also know very little and yet grok. Computers is the example comes to mind. I grok computers. I'm not particularly good withthem I don't know 15 zillion programming languages, but I grok them and how they work and i can start playing with any system and have a reasonable idea of what is going on. Nevertheless the computer "experts" here in physics know LOTS about computers write big programs and don't grok them at all it seems...weird.
thought from just now flaming with Bats "We see the rat race, we see the walls, and we want OUT, but we don't know what's out there"
Where does power come from? First thought was fear, most importantly fear of punishment..but that's not general enough. Second and current guess is Respect. fear is a type of respect in that you respect what they can do to you if you don't do what they say. but you ca have "constructive" respect where you aren't threatening, but leading with sheer force of personality. I'd like to think most of my power at TEP came from respect, not fear, and considering how little i could do as punishment I would guess that. but I did have a lot of real power within the house, and my opinion carried a lot of weight... US government functions mainly on a fear basis..fear of litigation etc. France/Switz seems nice...more of a respect basis...the buses for instance with no checking of tickets etc. and people paying anyway cuz they know that it is worth it for them to pay.