F stand for Fame in FIRST?

[Ken Leung]

Its funny how this thread grow so fast in just a few days. This board is much different than the off-season CD forum I've seen in the past few years, for better or worse. Anyway...

I am not really good with using words. When I said fame, I think what I want to mean is lots of people's recognition of you even though they don't really know who you are. That's one of the interesting things I experienced from FIRST. I guess it was kind of nice when people saw my red hair and say "hey you are that guy that posted on that forum..." or "hey, I like your post".

It was nice, but I realized that's not something I want in my life. I found strong friendship with few people much more enjoyable than being known by a lot of people but never really know any of them. Most conversations with people who "know of you" are a lot of obvious things that people talk about all the time, which is nice to know other people's opinion, but doesn't usually get deeper than that.

I used to go around to all the pits in the SVR regional asking teams about their robot, but all together it wasn't as good as chatting with a few people about their team. That's when I decided I would draw back from posting so much in the CD forum, and get to know people in person instead. I think that decision is starting to do some good. IRI and Atlanta was much more interesting than the competitions in the past.

So, think about it. Not everyone share the same opinion about how they want to experience this program we call FIRST. My advice is, don't post for the sake of posting. Go for those meaningful conversations that trigger your thoughts into all kinds of directions that even you can't predict its direction. Experience FIRST from deep within rather than from the surface.

Tom ask why I want to know. The truth is, I don't really know. Perhaps I just want to throw something out in the open and see where the discussion lead to. Now-a-days, I don't have many issues I care particularly about. I figure the smart people will take care of it. I think I enjoy the flow of discussion much more than what's really being said. I guess its kind of like learning a math formula to solve a problem, you do homework just to practice the problem, but you don't particularly have an opinion about how the answer look like.

Maybe this is a right way to use the forum, maybe it isn't. I don't really know. But I think I do enjoy arguing with people whether it is or isn't, no matter what the result of that argument is.