Power doesn't panic

So can power be an antidote to panic?

In the Star Wars series “Andor,” this line is uttered by the titular character.

“Power doesn’t panic.”

It has stuck with me ever since I’ve heard it, it has become my mantra, and it has caused me to think a lot about panic and what that means for me.

Sometimes panic comes like a raging typhoon. Depending on the kind of life being lived, those experiences may be more frequent than others. In my past life, I have had my fair share of these typhoons. But the last couple of years I find I face less awe-inspiring storms and have to deal with a more mundane type, one much less a cyclonic weather event, and feels more akin to a foggy drizzle on a grey morning. Perhaps less exciting, yet just as certain to soak you through and chill you to the bone. This is why I’ve inverted the quote, and started thinking of it from the angle of power as an antidote to panic.

Power is seen in the wrath of the storm, but this power is often beyond the grasp of mortals. The power we are capable of wielding is, again, more mundane, yet its banality does not detract from its ubiquitousness. Our power is like unto a good coat - one that can protect from fierce winds and, a more frequent occurrence, against the chill of a foggy grey drizzle.

This leads me to a question. What is this coat made of? As for myself, in this moment, I am pulled to an answer that is satisfactorily simple and depressingly difficult.

Acceptance.

Acceptance that I will do what I can, but what I can do might not amount to much. The closest thing I have to an answer is, as Nietzsche called it, Amor Fati.

And when confronted with my mundane panics, this acceptance is the only thing that feels like it gives me power.