“If you’re planning for one year, grow rice.
If you’re planning for ten years, grow trees.
If you’re planning for centuries, grow men.”
— Confucius
Sow short-sightedness and reap short-term returns; sow to the long-game and reap the long-term benefits. Cultures wars are not won in a moment. They are not resolved within a generation; they are won by winning the next generation. Decisive victories within a generation pave the way for future advance, but without a future to hand them off to, they are merely token victories which are erased as they evaporate.
If you have a vision for growing the circumference, you begin with the diameter. You begin with the end in mind. You push the boundaries out by growing out from the center.
The future will be inhabited by someone. The worldviews of tomorrow are being cultivated today. The world has embraced this eschatology which is why they are so adamant about their control of the education of young children. They simply assume the kids belong to them because they already presuppose the future belongs to their ideologies.
The world may need rice and trees, but it needs men to eat the rice and climb the trees even more.
Do not live on a chronological island. You come from a people and peoples will come from you. Do not live as though you will not have great grandchildren. Do not live as one who has forgotten that he has great grandfathers.
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