When you first hold a rifle, shooting seems so easy — just align the gun’s foresight, backsight, and the target, and pull the trigger. But there is a challenge!
Your eye is like a camera that can focus only at one distance at a time.
So when you focus your eyes on the target, the gun’s foresight (its front tip) and backsight (above the back of the barrel) are out of focus and blurred. And vice versa.
Your eyes can’t visually focus on all three points at the same time. Then where should you focus?
The most intuitive answer is to focus on the target. Wrong!
When your eyes are on the target, you have no idea how your gun is aligned. And if it is misaligned by even 1 degree, at 100 meters, you will be off-target by about 2 meters.
So aligning the backsight and foresight of the gun is the priority, while your target is vaguely in the background.
Even something as simple as a firearm can be so complicated when you get up close.
If you want to really understand something, there is only one way — get hands-on. Only then will you see all the complications.
That is why, ignorance breeds confidence, though of the wrong kind.
But when you get to the other side of expertise, you will have the confidence of someone who really knows.
That is the confidence we are all looking for.
– Rajan