Improving Opinion Into Knowledge
I collect speeches for the same reason I go to the library or read Walt Whitman's poems over and over again. They are reference points to me in the history of human kind where we made the heavy effort to think new, learn and make the bold choice to share gained knowledge. All in order to create what I believe is the common wealth of imagination.
There is a legend of when John F. Kennedy, before his above "We choose to go to the moon" speech managed to get all naysayers to think it could be possible. Not very surprising all scientists and engineers said it was absolutely impossible. JFK amused the smartest and the best from all over to world to brainstorm and humor him, by making lists of everything that could be possible. By deleting the disbelief and through play, they broke down an audacious goal into action and a blueprint was made to soon go with a budget.
Later in his famous speech at the Rice Stadium on September 12, 1962, JFK said:
"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
And with all fears of change and the impossible, we are mostly afraid of ourselves. This is when the fear of failure is so strong that we convince ourselves that it is impossible to succeed and then guarantee failure by not even trying, causing brain freeze. But if we have learned anything it is that once we are on the quest to learn more and believe that it is possible, there is really no stopping us. If we don't do it, someone else will.
"We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man"
Read the full speech or download it for your own collection of audacious blueprints.