Irony Becomes Her

Conclusions

"I can only conclude..."

We need conclusions in order to survive, and sometimes we'll do anything to get them. We'll jump to them, we'll slowly draw them, we'll let ourselves be led to them. I think our animal instincts prefer not to be surprised.

But we can make ourselves miserable with conclusions. We've had our hopes dashed enough times that we think living in gray shadowlands better than reaching for the sky and falling occasionally. It's a tough call, and many of us prefer to "face the reality" and trudge along rather than hope for and expect better.

In a profession in which I regularly deal with the public, I have encountered many who "can only conclude" x or y about why we've chosen to conduct business a certain way. Sometimes there are mistakes for which is it impossible to find the cause, but still someone "can only conclude" the worst possible motives on our part or on the part of some other entity.

Which conclusions do we really need? Sure, they make us feel smart, on top of things, responsible. We'd like to have as many loose ends tied up as we can. But faulty conclusions are much more harmful in the long run than faulty information-gathering.

A perfectly confident conclusion carries with it the implication of perfect omniscience. For that reason, I have always approached conclusions to papers, speeches and conversations with a certain measure of fear and trembling. I'm not in much of a position with anyone to do more than make suggestions.

Perhaps that's also why I tend to end blog posts with words like "perhaps."

posted by Lynn @ 2:16 PM