"You can be a victor without having victims"

"You can be a victor without having victims" is what surfaced in my fortune cookie today. This presents an odd conundrum.

To be the victor, well, that implies "winning". Whenever you "win" that means someone else "lost". At least that's how it typically goes.

My first pondering about this goes ... can you be a victor without being the "winner"? Let's set aside the question of whether winning means there's a loser, and the loser has to be a victim.

What's come to mind is a way of being strong, of having power, but not using that power or strength to dominate others. That's a way of living I've been exploring for awhile. It's very clear this is a different way of having power than typical.

The stereotype for a powerful person is one who easily dominates or kills their opponents, and revels in the strength. But it seems to me the standing warrior pose, to pick an example, is meant to train one in a different kind of strength/power.

The standing warrior pose is all about presencing yourself right here, right now, being you in this moment in all that means to be you. This presencing of yourself is the you which cannot be destroyed. It's the you which can withstand the crashing of ocean waves and not be moved.

If you cannot be defeated, aren't you a victor?

Which gets us back to the other half of this. If you are a victor, does that make someone into a loser/victim?

So, if you cannot be defeated, and your victorhood came through not being defeated, then what happens to the person who wanted to defeat you? It seems they would not have been vanquished, because all you did was to be the part of yourself that you cannot be defeated. Being undefeated does not require that the other lose.

Being undefeated simply means you weren't defeated. No victims or losers are needed in this picture.