One soldier fought during the Second World War and received high awards. He was a brave soldier. But almost twenty-five years have passed since then, and he led a quiet life, managing a small farm.
And then one day he was walking from the farm to his home with a bucket full of eggs. Here, several tavern regulars decided to play a joke on the unlucky old warrior for fun. “Attention!” - one of them barked. The poor guy dropped the bucket and stood at attention.
Twenty-five years have passed since he completed his training. But it entered into his flesh and blood, fused with his bones and penetrated into the marrow; has become part of the unconscious. He had absolutely no idea what he was doing, doing it purely mechanically.
How angry he was!
- Why be angry? - the jokers told him. “We are free to shout any words we want.” Who is asking you to obey?
“It’s too late for me to decide whether to obey or not,” he replied. - My mind is built like a machine. It's been twenty-five years since it happened. “Attention!” means "at attention." Because of you, my balls broke. Oh, wretched me!
And similar things are happening all over the world. And not just today. From the very beginning, armies were taught not to use reason, but only to follow orders. You must understand one thing very clearly: following an order and understanding are diametrically opposed phenomena. If, through understanding, you have satisfied your intellect and, on the basis of this, performed a certain action, this is no longer following an external order, but your own intellect.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru