Books are people too: Interviews with books
"Thinking like a freak!" by Levitt and Dubner
The objective of this series is to interview a book as a person after reading it. In this episode, we shall interview "Think Like a Freak" by Levitt and Dubner who had previously authored the famous "Freakonomics" and "Superfreakonomics" books. The book starts off with "The authors of Freakonomics" offer to retrain your brain" right on the front cover. So we start off with this as a question.
Interviewer (Fayyaz Minhas, FM): Thank you for your time for this interview. Let me get straight to the point. What does it mean to think like a freak?
(Think Like a Freak, TLAF): Thank you for the opportunity for the interview. However, I had anticipated this question and have a well-prepared answer for this. I would first like to emphasize the fact that very few people think or, in the words of George Bernard Shaw "Few people think more than two or three times a year!". My catchy name is to encourage people to think first and then as a freak. Its simply to encourage people to take a break from their screens and sit in a corner and do nothing but happily think! Now about thinking like a freak --- In my opinion, a freak is someone who is an eccentric, an original thinker, who goes in depth of the obvious and the not-so-obvious in his analysis. Such a person, like children, is not afraid of being judged at asking "stupid" questions, challenging the status quo, thinking small instead of big, quitting, failing, or simply admitting "I don't know!".
FM: Great! So, how can we start thinking like one?
TLAF: By realizing that we don't know everything! As children, we don't have such mental biases that prevent us from asking simple questions but as we grow up, we stop taking the smiles people get at our questions as mere smiles and consider them as smirk criticism. This, and the mockery of school tests in which we are graded over not thinking but knowing, kill the little freak in us. We must keep that freaky child alive in all of us or give it a rebirth. We must also realize that we mostly think of ourselves to be better than we actually are. Remember how a large majority of people in a survey label themselves to be above average. It's easy to start thinking this way if we know we need improvement and are motivated to follow up on this! Also, instead of thinking Big all the time, think about small things or basic or fundamental things as it would lead you to big answers!
FM: How?
TLAF: I don't know what would work for each one of us in that regard but one of the ways that might be done is ask yourself "What is your problem?" and get to the root of the problem. As I said in the text, "Like a bad dye job, the truth is in the roots!". However, this may require a lot of digging around until you get what you want. It also requires you to know if you are asking the right question and if you really want to find the answer. My coin trick can work that you can use to judge if you really want something or not by tossing a coin and then knowing whether you would wish it were heads or tails!
FM: You keep saying that children are ideal thinkers, but the problems they have are pretty small in comparison to what we experience as adults. So how can we "scale up"?
TLAF: I mean to say that we can learn a lot from children but it requires us to let go of our thinking of ourseleves as smarter than children. Children typically get what they want and don't give up easy. This means there is something to learn from them. Kids don't buy into dogma and don't typically think about pleasing everyone around. They are curious otherwise who-without-a-freaky-mind would want to put their tiny pinky into an electric socket? Another great thing about kids is that they don't overthink. Ever seen a kid think about the futility of having to climb back onto a slide just to come down again?
FM: Okay, I get it. You have also talked about how to work with people. What tips would you like to give in this regard?
TLAF: The first thing we need to realize is that we can never be alone. Solitude is needed and mandatory for the survival of the soul and the inner freak. However, for the most part of our lives, we must interact with other people. The biggest idea I have come up with is that people like incentives, to feel in control (note that I didn't say that they like "being" in control), be appreciated and be productive. To work well with people you need to figure out what people really care about and this may be different from what they say they care about and then incentivize them on the aspects that are precious to them but easy for you to provide.
FM: How have been so successful?
TLAF: Haha, thanks for the compliment. It's easy if you keep you "weed out" unwanted stuff from both within you and around you to focus on what you like. As "The Subtle art of not giving a f*ck" says, there will always be problems, you just need to pick the ones you like and work with them! Also, once you accept an early failure and be happy about it, you can keep going on without hurting yourself too bad and it will ultimately lead you on to good times!
FM: You are pretty persuasive in your approach of writing and convincing people who may hold opposing views. There must be a strategy behind it, no?
TLAF: So I feel that it is easy to persuade someone if this is actually what you want to do. If you start calling names to people then, may be, you just wanted them to feel bad about themselves and not convince them. People tend to react more strongly to negative criticism than positive statements. In the human psyche, "Bad is larger than good". Also, having a disagreement with someone does not mean that what they are saying is wrong. One must acknowledge the valid points in their arguments. And the best of all: To convince people, try telling them stories instead of giving rules or anecdotes! Make the argument interesting to them!
FM: Cool! Actually, that is what inspired me to start this book interview series. I felt if I were to review this book it would be pretty dry and I may not be able to persuade a lot of people to read my boring reviews but this seems like a better approach and might work. I am also thinking of starting a story series for my teaching as well. So thank you for that idea. And thank you for your time as well.
TLAF: Thank you! Do read "Think like a freak!" again after a while but in the meanwhile and more importantly "Keep thinking like one!".
Really amazing. The interviewer question makes the interview more interesting :)
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