Jim Brown K9YC writes...
> On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:48:46 -0400, Bob Close wrote:
>>Why do we always have to "contribute to ham radio"?
> For the same reason that in any democracy, every individual must
> contribute to society if the society is to be a healthy one.
An extremely important point to remember is that there is no
exclusivity between "contributing" and "having fun". These two
characteristics should both be true.
And it is important to note that "having fun" is not the same thing as
"experiencing pleasure". A few years ago I trained for and competed in
ultra-distance triathlons (I use the word "compete" loosely). There
were many times during my training when I was experiencing pain and
nothing that anybody could consider pleasure, but I was still having a
ball.
For me, having fun and the satisfaction of achieving an individual or
shared goal mean pretty much the same thing.
Those who look at amateur radio as an opportunity only to receive
pleasure will never learn CW, electronics, propagation, operating
skill, how to deploy a 4-boom stacked 24-element yagi for the VHF
contest, or even how to cut grass around a field-day site. None of
those contributions to the joy (not pleasure) of myself and those
around me has anything to do with "emcomm" or any of the other narrow
ways some people define "contribution". But without contribution in
the broad sense there will be no satisfaction and then this hobby or
any other really will die. Narrowly defining contribution, as we see
all too often on the free-for-all ham radio online forums, is surely
destructive, even if just to the person expressing that narrowness.
If anything, life is so easy that we have forgotten what it is to
contribute, and I suspect that's at the root of modern unhappiness as
much as anything.
Rick, KR9D
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