The Fallacy of Closure

It is funny how certain snippets of a story stick with you.  In Robert Heinlein’s short story, “Blowups Happen”, there is a scene between two scientists that holds a gem of wisdom.  A scientist named Cal Harper suggests a scientific approach to solving an important problem to his colleague Gus Erickson.

“Erickson looked up after a few moments, and asked, ‘Cal, have you any idea how many terms there are in the expansion?’

‘No … hundreds, maybe thousands, I suppose.’

‘You’re conservative. It reaches four figures without considering possible new radioactives.  We couldn’t finish such research in a century,’ He chucked his pencil down and looked morose.

Cal Harper looked at him curiously, but with sympathy. ‘Gus,’ he said gently, ‘the job isn’t getting you, too, is it?’

‘I don’t think so. Why?’

‘I never saw you so willing to give up anything before.  Naturally you and I will never finish any such job, but at the very worst we will have eliminated a lot of wrong answers for somebody else …’”

The idea that their research did not have to come to closure to be valuable is priceless.  I contend it is the same way with life, with all endeavors.  It is a mark of maturity to not need the payoff to exert effort.  The effort has intrinsic value that has no bearing on whether the destination is reached.  Teenagers often frantically seek out the “ultimate meaning” or the “one truth” and upon failing deem it all relative and worthless.  People pick at flaws in society as if society was finished.  The concept that “it never ends” seems unjust in our “instant gratification” society.  This does not mean we do not work hard to achieve our goals, it just means that we focus on the work instead of the payoff.  Right work is reward in itself and everything else is gravy.  Additionally, it is far better for someone else to deem your goal achieved than for you to assert such a thing.

So, the moral is that to expect destinations and closure is foolhardy.  The path is the path and once you stop seeking to force some grand ending … you no longer rush down the path and instead delight in the path itself.

- Mike