A Means to Knowledge

I once took a science test in high school with the multiple-choice answers written on the pencil I was using. While standing in a circle in the smoking area right before my last class, which was science, I made the comment that I wasn’t ready for the test I was about to take. So, a kid in the circle handed me the pencil and said, “there’s the answers.” I don’t know how he got the pencil. I never asked. He was a freshman and it was a sophomore class but, I made a hundred on that test. Usually I came out with a passing grade. A low C or a high D. reading the chapter was the most effort that I put into that class. Science really wasn’t my thing.
In my freshman year a guy once paid me one dollar per assignment to do his homework for him. Of course, it was in my handwriting, which he wouldn’t recopy and, he acted like I was over charging him, but that was English class and he had hit me up later in the week for some Science and Math. I guess if I had been more proficient in my life of crime I would have taken up forgery, and if I had been more business minded I would have charged him less since I was getting more work from him. I quit that scam after a couple of weeks for fear of getting caught and being heckled over my prices. The dude was making A’s for the first time in his life and if he would have recopied the work that was already done for him then he might have passed the tests. You can’t put a price tag on that. 
Proverbs 1:7 claims that the fear of the lord is the beginning of all knowledge. Now, if I was a Pharisee or some other kind of rabbinical scholar or like King David who it is said would wake up in the wee hours to study Torah then I might would break this statement down. (of course, I’ll note hear that it was David’s son Solomon who wrote Proverbs.) I might would say that “fear” is the beginning of all knowledge or, that fear is the means to knowledge. Not that I am trying to take anything away from the Lord. This is just a deeper dive to the root of it for case in point that fear is the fulcrum that sets learning into motion.
When I was in the army I was surrounded by many very young men such as myself who had volunteered the same as I had but, did not realize what they were getting into. The whole training experience was based on fear: fear of being yelled at, fear of being made to do push ups till you puked, but most of all we were afraid of failing because failing meant that you had to start over which put you that much further from being able to see your friends and family that you missed dearly at that point.
Another thing I think we were all afraid of was quitting. Its one thing to fail those around you but I’ve always found that failing yourself is harder to swallow and fear, of anything, is the ultimate engine that powers us to strive. Employees fear their employer through fear of discipline and termination but, gratitude can bring those fears to fruition of a job well done.
To give validation to that last point I will say that there is a whole generation out there who does not know how to read and right. I won’t say which one but, I will say that it is a generation that saw the most vicious of teachers to ever grace the school system. They would beat children with paddles, yard sticks, even beat the back of their hands with rulers. This just goes to show that fear, without proper instruction, is simply just malice.

Salutation Pending 
Johnny R Draper

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