José Teixeira
This is it, folks. The last post you'll ever read from me in this blog. As a way to bring closure, I thought I'd do a sort of recap of everything I wrote about in here, and what kind of change, if any, it brought to me as a person.
I wrote about all kinds of stuff, from the Cold War to Richard Feynman, but there were a few topics that really resonated with me, and I'd like to address them here:
First - and rather obviously - the Cold War, but not in the way you'd expect. What really interested me about the Cold War weren't the muscle-flexing or the Mexican standoffs. It was - and you can kind of guess what I'm going to say - the science behind it all. The number of inventions that resulted from all of this - not to mention the atomic bomb - is overwhelming, and I encourage you to look them up if, like me, you think the Cold War is just a couple of kids playing with (radioactive) knives.
The second point is somehow related to the first, but I feel like it needs its own category, because of the amount of change it brought to me personally. I had already heard of Richard Feynman before this project, but I had never fully appreciated the sheer awesomeness of this guy. Researching science in the Cold War and nuclear weapons brought me closer to his work and I can safely say he's the best person to ever walk on this Earth. If you want to know more about Feynman - trust me, it's worth it -, he published some books, a couple of them autobiographical. The one I recommend is, without a doubt, "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman".
Lastly, I'd like to address the effects that researching on the Hippie Movement brought me. I sort of talked about this in this month's podcast, but in case you haven't heard it, or don't remember, or just don't like hearing me talk, I'll say it here too. Basically, the War on Drugs brought alongside it a huge stigma towards the use of certain heavy drugs like Psychedelics, which prevented neuroscientists to actually know what that stuff does to you. Thankfully, legislation is beginning to soften in the US, and research on Psychedelic experiences is booming. Obviously, I read extensively on it and, as it turns out, if used correctly, the substance can have great positive transformative effects on the user, making him/her, among other things, feel a greater sense of unity with the Universe. They're already being used in treating certain mental illnesses like anxiety and depression and, because of all I said - and some more things - Psychedelics have made me change my views on drug legislation completely. Since this isn't a post on Psychedelics, I won't argue for them here, but my view is that all drugs should be at least given the chance for us to know enough about them before being prohibited or not. Who knows what kind of good things can come out of some substances that, like Psychedelics were in the 60s - and still are -, are held as taboo by society at large?
So, those were the aspects in which this whole project has influenced me the most. As a blog host, I hope everyone that accompanied me through these months has at least felt some of that change themselves. That would, I believe, be a mission accomplished.