The title of this post is somewhat misleading; I do not intend for this blog post to be my final one on this blog. However, as the academic year comes to an end and as I prepare to move on to a very different environment, it's a good time to look back and talk about some of the most important ideas in this blog.
Like most of us, I've spent some time (possibly too much) thinking about what others think of me or say about me. I often think about what my legacy will be, what people will say about me when I'm gone. Personally, I hope that when they talk or think about me, they will be able to say that I handled whatever life threw at me as well as possible under the circumstances and that I made the right choices when given the chances.
A lot of this blog has focused on the people and societies that have been unable to make the right choices when they were given a major change. Whether it was American society reacting poorly to the modern world, resulting in chemophobia, or the modern protectionists lobbying against free trade, these posts would discuss the logical failings of the people that were making the decisions. The result was irrationality, which was and is both dangerous and detrimental to the decision-makers.
The reason I chose to write my blog about irrationality and poor decisions is because I pride myself on my logic. Of course, like everyone else, I can be irrational or illogical, but when I really want to be logical and clinical, I am able to do so, and I can use that side of me to think clearly about a situation and come up with the most logical and, hopefully, the best option possible. I try not to fall into the fallacies that we've explored, including excessive conservatism or foolish hope.
I often am criticized for this clinical approach to decision-making. Many people often say that I need to try to inject more emotion or hope into those decisions. Granted, they may very well be correct. It's likely that I would be benefited in many respects by finding a way to think emotionally and logically at the same time. But that's exactly the point -- I can't and don't want to throw out the logic in my personality. My logic and my ability to think through situations logically is one of the things I am most proud of. The lack of logic some people display in certain situations bothers me more than most other things, and that's why I chose to write about that topic for this blog. Logic and rationality, especially in response to change, is a major part of who I am, and I sincerely hope that when I'm gone, people will say I met my standards for those traits.
I really enjoyed reading this post, and your blog. I agree that logic is far more important than many seem to believe. However, I'd like to point out that all of your reasoning about how you want to be remembered is in the end based on values. I did the same thing when I said logic is important. And while I do value logic, I also can easily think of some very logical decisions which are simply immoral by most standards. Indetectable cheating, or theft when there is no chance of getting caught, to name a few. While logic, the method, is important, so is the goal and end result. Identifying what we value, and sticking to those values, is something I want to be remembered for when I'm gone.
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