Because our power is so threatened and our ability to control our environment so curtailed, we may explore ways of using our helplessness to gain power. Perhaps we get others to focus on our predicament. Controlling attention is power. Or perhaps we play on people’s pity, guilt, or sense of duty. Instinctively, we seem to know that we can pull those strings. We remember, after all, how we ourselves used to feel in the presence of someone else’s helplessness.
