It is August, already. I have found that, as my own cognition improves, I’m drawn more and more to the mental structures of rationality. I am reading the Glass Bead Game, listening to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, rereading the Stoic principles.
The positive or negative thing about such pleasant structures is their supposed ease of access. Here, says the Universe, is a method of being Rational/Logical/Stoical, or whatever term is appropriate. Now you can be Rational/Logical/Stoical. Never once does Rationality appear to say, sorry, this is not for you. It does not have any layers that are inscrutable, or beyond you. It merely provides a method, and away you go.
To use it daily, is to question both the data I take in, and the technique I use to examine it. It means that I am forced to move so slowly over material facts like a glacier taking over a new piece of material; I have to take in the fact, then correctly use the technique with regards to it.
I wanted to take in and consider the next five years. My son will be 18 by then, and I’ll be 57. Considering that it always takes longer to reach a goal or target than you think, and that cognitive bias is a factor nearly impossible to avoid, setting small targets seems sensible. It is also sensible when you consider the destruction to the West, and to the area North of Africa; the world is going to look very different in five years.
More on this tomorrow.
How are Things? 
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