B964
07-31-2008, 05:48 AM
Thinking
Life is a challenge. There are no two ways about it. From the day to day on up to the culmination upon its end, life is a challenge.
Truth is a challenge. Try going through life saying nothing but truth. Yes, you may be honest, truthful. But the first time your wife asks "Does this dress make me look fat", you may find truth moving more to tact, or a "white lie". Wrong? I don't think so. Truth? No.
There is but one life, though that one life will have many truths. One of those truths is that nothing is ever static. Your entire life is the accumulation of your experiences. History is simply the broader version of this, the accumulation of the world's experiences. One of the challenges of life is to take the truths, learned through experience, and apply them to making your future better.
If we fail to learn from History, we are doomed to repeat it. Be it personal, or otherwise.
And this takes thought.
Thought. The very thing that separates us from all the other animals. Animals can learn, through personal experience, but we are not forced to learn this way. Some animals can be trained to give a response to commands or stimulus. Take a dog for instance. Heel, sit, roll over, play dead, fetch. Heck, my aunt had a cat that would open doors by hanging off the knob and swinging back and forth. How it "thought" of this, I have no idea. But would it understand math? Read and write? Explain what it had learned to another cat? No.
The goal of Appleseed, on the surface, is to create a nation of Riflemen. But to what purpose? What is the difference between a rifleman, and a Rifleman?
Simply put, thought.
An Appleseed is not an Appleseed without the History. The History is what makes us who we are. Truthfully, just about anyone, with enough training and effort, can become a rifleman. But a Rifleman? That takes thought. The understanding of Truth. The ability to set aside personal goals and needs for the greater good. Sacrifice. Dedication.
The ability to learn how to actually Think. Separate facts from opinion. Analyze all facts. Arrive at a conclusion. And then be ready to adjust that conclusion if new facts are learned.
There is a large difference between reaching a well thought out conclusion, and reacting. A well thought out conclusion takes time. Reaction does not. One of the curses of the internet, the very net we must work through here, is the reactions, as opposed to conclusions, that all of us have a tendency to reach.
Ironic, that unlike spoken word, the internet has safeguards against this very activity, and yet reactionary statements happen much more here. The safeguard is the "enter" button. When we write something here, we all must press "enter" for others to ever know we wrote it. We have the chance, no, the opportunity, to go back and digest what we have written, to be sure it was thought out, that a conclusion had been reached, that we were not reactionary.
The fact that we don't is because we are now in a society that no longer values thought. Everything is a 15-second sound bite. Everything is instant gratification. The time required to actually Think is "wasted" time. Action action action, all the time, and if you are sitting still, you ain't living.
Part of becoming a Rifleman is to overcome this social conditioned part of ourselves. To slow down. To Think.
Let it begin here, on this forum. Think. Ask yourself "is what I have to say relevant to the first post", "would this be more appropriate in a PM", "have I truly weighed the pros and cons well", "is this opinion or fact".
Believe it or not, the quality of this forum depends on you, the user. Quality input begets quality output. If you begin to think here, I guarantee you that you will begin to think more elsewhere. Practice thinking about your words before you speak them. Many of us have seen Fred give his speeches. He speaks, pauses to collect his thoughts, and then speaks some more. He Thinks, before he speaks.
Fred and I often ask each other "how have you Improved since we last met?", upon meeting up again at various Appleseeds. I try to ask him first, so I won't have to answer first. But I had better have an answer either way. Makes me Think.
The Indians had a saying, "you have two ears and one mouth, so you should speak half as much as you listen". What does this truly mean? Think.
So I challenge you. Start Thinking. Thinking here before posting. Thinking elsewhere before speaking. Thinking about how you can Improve, this forum, this Program, yourself. So that next time I see you, even if it is for the first time, you can tell me how you have Improved. And how you have been Thinking. How you have truly begun to become a Rifleman
I bet it will make Life a little less challenging.
Writen by "The Guy" on the Appleseed forum. Copied with his approval.
Life is a challenge. There are no two ways about it. From the day to day on up to the culmination upon its end, life is a challenge.
Truth is a challenge. Try going through life saying nothing but truth. Yes, you may be honest, truthful. But the first time your wife asks "Does this dress make me look fat", you may find truth moving more to tact, or a "white lie". Wrong? I don't think so. Truth? No.
There is but one life, though that one life will have many truths. One of those truths is that nothing is ever static. Your entire life is the accumulation of your experiences. History is simply the broader version of this, the accumulation of the world's experiences. One of the challenges of life is to take the truths, learned through experience, and apply them to making your future better.
If we fail to learn from History, we are doomed to repeat it. Be it personal, or otherwise.
And this takes thought.
Thought. The very thing that separates us from all the other animals. Animals can learn, through personal experience, but we are not forced to learn this way. Some animals can be trained to give a response to commands or stimulus. Take a dog for instance. Heel, sit, roll over, play dead, fetch. Heck, my aunt had a cat that would open doors by hanging off the knob and swinging back and forth. How it "thought" of this, I have no idea. But would it understand math? Read and write? Explain what it had learned to another cat? No.
The goal of Appleseed, on the surface, is to create a nation of Riflemen. But to what purpose? What is the difference between a rifleman, and a Rifleman?
Simply put, thought.
An Appleseed is not an Appleseed without the History. The History is what makes us who we are. Truthfully, just about anyone, with enough training and effort, can become a rifleman. But a Rifleman? That takes thought. The understanding of Truth. The ability to set aside personal goals and needs for the greater good. Sacrifice. Dedication.
The ability to learn how to actually Think. Separate facts from opinion. Analyze all facts. Arrive at a conclusion. And then be ready to adjust that conclusion if new facts are learned.
There is a large difference between reaching a well thought out conclusion, and reacting. A well thought out conclusion takes time. Reaction does not. One of the curses of the internet, the very net we must work through here, is the reactions, as opposed to conclusions, that all of us have a tendency to reach.
Ironic, that unlike spoken word, the internet has safeguards against this very activity, and yet reactionary statements happen much more here. The safeguard is the "enter" button. When we write something here, we all must press "enter" for others to ever know we wrote it. We have the chance, no, the opportunity, to go back and digest what we have written, to be sure it was thought out, that a conclusion had been reached, that we were not reactionary.
The fact that we don't is because we are now in a society that no longer values thought. Everything is a 15-second sound bite. Everything is instant gratification. The time required to actually Think is "wasted" time. Action action action, all the time, and if you are sitting still, you ain't living.
Part of becoming a Rifleman is to overcome this social conditioned part of ourselves. To slow down. To Think.
Let it begin here, on this forum. Think. Ask yourself "is what I have to say relevant to the first post", "would this be more appropriate in a PM", "have I truly weighed the pros and cons well", "is this opinion or fact".
Believe it or not, the quality of this forum depends on you, the user. Quality input begets quality output. If you begin to think here, I guarantee you that you will begin to think more elsewhere. Practice thinking about your words before you speak them. Many of us have seen Fred give his speeches. He speaks, pauses to collect his thoughts, and then speaks some more. He Thinks, before he speaks.
Fred and I often ask each other "how have you Improved since we last met?", upon meeting up again at various Appleseeds. I try to ask him first, so I won't have to answer first. But I had better have an answer either way. Makes me Think.
The Indians had a saying, "you have two ears and one mouth, so you should speak half as much as you listen". What does this truly mean? Think.
So I challenge you. Start Thinking. Thinking here before posting. Thinking elsewhere before speaking. Thinking about how you can Improve, this forum, this Program, yourself. So that next time I see you, even if it is for the first time, you can tell me how you have Improved. And how you have been Thinking. How you have truly begun to become a Rifleman
I bet it will make Life a little less challenging.
Writen by "The Guy" on the Appleseed forum. Copied with his approval.