a thought on the nature of standing for something:

Many people who once planted an apple tree never lived to see any fruit from it. Nevertheless, the tree did eventually bear fruit, and those living when it fruited were blessed by it.

If we only plant seeds with the expectation of immediate benefit, we will almost certainly become impatient waiting for results and give up. Just as a large ship travelling at full speed takes time and distance to turn around, many of the seeds we plant during our time on earth will take longer than our lifetimes to fully actualize a result.

This is true of bad seed as well as good seed. All actions and words have repercussions; we do not exist in a void. Every action and word emanates like ripples in a pond, and our sphere of influence is far larger than most of us imagine. And we do tend to reap what we sow (or, somebody down the line reaps it when we're gone)

For these reasons it it is good to envision a destination before we start turning the ship around. It is necessary to know which fruit we want to leave for our kids before we plant the tree.

And then, having planted it, we should spend time watering and fertilizing it until it establishes a solid root. This is the basis of common sense IMO. There are many philosophies that disregard the tenets of cause and effect, and they are not worthy to be regarded equally with good sense value adding philosophies.

This is not to say that any philosophy is perfect, for I don't believe that. But our goal should be to make changes to an imperfect world that do less damage than good.

To reject thinking just because it is not perfect misses the point. That strategy will render anyone impotent to move in any direction, because all philosophies are flawed.

But if we communicate and work together, it is possible to get a consensus on the fruit we want to leave for posterity.

Or not. Our call.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ey71h8ep047758h/AAC12jNM0Hz9Q8zsh5iDeqNHa?dl=0