If there is still half a fruit left, I'll cut around it. Otherwise I toss it. Moldy fruit, on the other hand, I execute mercilessly.

I eat around the rotten spots.  Leftovers go to the chickens or the worms.

no pun intended..

Everyone's attention seems to be elsewhere ; P

I'll leave the apple question for a little longer, and then I'll post an interesting detailed description about said question. 

In theory, I think I should say that I'd cut around the rot spot in the apple.  In practice, we have so many apples here, that I just get more and cut up the ones with bits I don't like (mold, rot, whatever) for my guinea pigs.  If the guinea pigs don't like it - the chickens and worms surely will, but somebody under my umbrella is going to take care of it.

Looking past the basics, it seems your apple could just as well be society.  If we don't like something about it, why DON'T most people just throw out society and civilization the way they would throw out an apple - just rejecting it out of hand and going for a better one?  Maybe that's a sophmoric attempt to see something more in what you said than what you meant to ask, but it came to me.

Also, I eat cores - seeds and all, so there's that.

Dom 

Hmm ; )

Not going to anwer just yet, as the question's intention is to illicit ruminations..

Still, your get *cookies* 

Thanks for adding! ; )

Well, I guess I didn't get many responses, but thanks to those who did.. I gained some insight...

The purpose of the question.. well I forgot...

But I liked  ebacherdom response.. although I was actually looking at the question from two different points of view than he did... I was looking at it from the sense that 'takers' tend to not look past the initial value of an object, be it food or couch, and tend, for convience sake toss it out. (In that sense the question was a bit of a trick.. although I guess ebachedrdom got it...)... the other was actually applying that idea to thoughts and experiences... I've seen many people I care about do this so it's been hard to communicate the things I've taken away from quinns work to them.. but well the jist is this: Takers look at an idea (apple) and only see what they want to see (the apple flesh as food). It takes a lot of thinking outside the box.. to see what else that ide (apple) can be (potential seeds for more trees, potentially a dolls head, paper... etc).  I know people who can see past the idea to things that that others would ignore or miss, but these people do that almost automatically, and can't explain or purposely think past a idea... I think I'm rambling again, but my point is that there needs to be a certain consious effort to think past the ingrained inially idea (what mother culture whispers is *fact*) to something new... 

ugh, need to go take care of my daughter ; ) byes     

Thanks!

I'm a bit of a designy (wd?)

Got my degree in Material Engineering, so I thought I'd (edit: try to) put it to good use.