"Perhaps that's the rational conclusion, but, if so, it's beset on all sides by confounding little puzzles; they act like streams that divert and weaken the river of rational thought."
— Rothman, Joshua
Author
Date
April 23, 2013
Metaphor
"Perhaps that's the rational conclusion, but, if so, it's beset on all sides by confounding little puzzles; they act like streams that divert and weaken the river of rational thought."
Metaphor in Context
Perhaps that's the rational conclusion, but, if so, it's beset on all sides by confounding little puzzles; they act like streams that divert and weaken the river of rational thought. Graduate school, for example, is a one-time-only offer. Very few people start doctoral programs later in life. If you pass it up, you pass it up forever. Given that, isn't walking away actually the rash decision? (This kind of thinking is a subspecies of the habit of mind psychologists call loss aversion: once you have something, it's very hard to give it up; if you get into grad school, it's very hard not to go.) And then there's the fact that graduate school, no matter how bad an idea it might be in the long term, is almost always fulfilling and worthwhile in the short term. As our conversation continued, my friend was struck by this. "How many people get paid to read what they want to read," he asked, "and study what they want to study?" He paused. "If I got into a really good program, I would probably go."
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Joshua Rothman, "The Impossible Decision," in The New Yorker Blog: Page Turner (April 23, 2013), <Link to New Yorker>
Date of Entry
04/25/2013
