There are ways to help people that still allow the rush of power, said power is simply less benevolent. People who've been helped tend to rely upon those who helped them, respecting their advice and guidance once the results come piling in. Knowing the game can allow you to work around the usual resistances people put up against advice, and can make for faster changes in the individual for the better, making the world ever so slightly a less monotonous place, while still practicing the talent for control in ways that still show results. People in such cases are sort of like rescued pets from an animal shelter; hurt, damaged, needing the help of others because they are too blinded to help themselves, and then there I am, willing to take them in, psychologically nurse them back to health, and turn such a person back upon society who suddenly carries views that partially reflect my own, spreading it.
I've tried to be a good person, but at certain points of trust, it becomes tempting to see how blindly they'll follow obviously bad advice, much like leading an animal around with a laser pointer. Helping someone become a better person is like watching a plant grow, slow and gently rewarding, where using a lighter to ignite the plant is exciting, but immediate gratification that is as quick as it came. There's pride in one's achievements, but achievements in the realm of life-crushing are seldom as nostalgic as an unburnt bridge you just helped reinforce. Plus, the typical need for reciprocity can have yields for keeping such people around until it's no longer desirable, which, with life-helping prospects as a prior context, can leave you the 55 in a 45/55 split perception of power; the perception of being one step ahead.
The main part that sucks the most is when good advice has a bad outcome. For myself, it makes me feel as if I failed them in some way, which is damaging to my sense of pride, and I cannot tolerate failure from myself quite as easily as I can from others with reduced senses of awareness, who really can't help but make mistakes as they feel around life blindly in the dark, relishing what few things they can see (could easily have this argument reflected back at me, for in some ways I am blind too).
I thought this was an interesting comment, the idea that helping someone become a better person is like watching a plant grow. In some ways for me helping people allows me to live multiple lives, alternative realities. It's like a chessmaster who is playing multiple games at once. A blackjack player playing multiple hands at once. It is not enough for my brain to want to maximize my own success, but also to imagine what it would be like to live another life, and succeed in that one as well.
I don't do it for the other person. In fact, a lot of times the people I "help" would rather I had not. A lot of my friends ask me for stock advice. I gave one friend some advice right before the market crash in 2008. They followed my advice, but only in broad strokes and lost a significant sum of money. Interestingly, I used an even more risky strategy with my own money and managed to come out ok. But that is just the nature of probability and risk. Maybe I understand probabilities better than most people because I have a larger pool of observations from which to draw. One major benefit of living these multiple lives -- I understand that there are very few "sure things" in life.
