Society:
Why we are held back
Copyright Findawish.com
12-11-02

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Introduction

I have recently taken on a task that involves at least three things that I dearly love and can name, basketball, teaching and philosophy.  While this doesn’t seem all too important a clear and definite point has started to surface.  As with any sport, a basketball team has some players that are better than others.  In high school a basketball team’s diversity in talent is almost always blatantly obvious.  This diversity creates a division and some players rise to the top while others find themselves sandwiched somewhere in the middle or on the bottom.

The same diversity of talent on a basketball team can be seen in all aspects of life.  In society in general some people lead while others find themselves somewhere in the middle or squashed at the bottom.  Some people are extremely rich while others are less fortunate.  Countries rise to the top and dominate while others struggle to remain in existence.

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Putting a slight twist on this, let’s focus on a college basketball team.  In college you can recruit players, hand-pick the best of the best and put them on your team.  While you try to choose the best leaders, inevitably the same talent diversity that affects a high school team will affect your college team or your pro team for that matter.  Forget about sports for a minute.  The same is true in your school classrooms, your work force, your leaders and so on.

The problem with this inevitable diversity in basketball is that the players at the top of the talent pool are going to be held back.  Ultimately, then, these top players will suffer right?  Well…not always and I’ll give you three main reasons.

First, if you have ever taught classes on anything to students then you also know that teaching that subject means you are constantly learning.  In other words, if you really want to know something well you have to teach it or be able to teach it to someone else.  The current understanding of teaching/learning is through repetition so the more you have to tell someone about a certain subject the more you are going to remember it yourself.  Taking time to help your teammates, classmates, coworkers or children may be the best investment of time you have ever made and will ever make.

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Second, it really doesn’t help society as a whole to leave the less fortunate behind.  While I could write a book on this next statement, and I’m sure much has already been written about it: ignorance multiplies much faster than intelligence.  On a basketball team, this is detrimental.  In life, this is detrimental.  In a global view, well you get the point.  Sometimes we have to take a step back and look at the big picture to be able to ask ourselves if we are really going to improve a situation that includes so many other people by focusing on ourselves.

Finally, (pun intended) while this is something that I have noticed but have only recently started to research, society as a whole seems to lose a lot of information every two to three thousand years.  The Incas, the Mayas, the origins of the Native Americans and Atlantis are a few of the societies, myths and legends that have been lost.  The recent revival of the Lord of The Rings says it the best but I’ll have to loosely quote it by saying that fact becomes a memory, memories become legends, legends become myths and soon they are all but forgotten.  Only time will tell if and when this phenomena will happen again.  One thing I think we have going for us is that our world is becoming more of a global knowledge center and while we don’t know much about very many subjects we must know more globally than most people living a thousand years ago did.

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Being held back is a problem and it is a relevant argument when you are in a group.  I can think of many instances where I was held back needlessly but I am also old enough to have experienced being the person holding people back.  All-in-all I have learned from each experience and look forward to the next. Maybe by writing this article and publishing it I am holding you back, then again, maybe not.

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Sources

As always I'll admit my source and in this instance my source is my own thoughts on the subject.  Any similarities to other published articles are purely coincidental.  Since this article was written in about 15 minutes and a 5 in the morning, I'll welcome comments against my logic gladly and try to respond to all of them.

My Pledge

As you may notice in the many articles to come, I absolutely can not stand people that have an opinion about something they know very little about or didn't take the time to research before giving their opinion.  I pledge that I will not write a single article about a subject that I don't know enough about to see several sides of the issue.  If you think I am missing something, I'd love to be the first to know about it.

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