Tim Ferriss made a super interesting post last week about revealing flaws of character by purposefully unleashing environmental and situational adversity on new acquaintances. It’s really thought-provoking, and went a little something like this:

3. Take them to a restaurant with good food but bad service. (Testing: how diplomatically they contend with and resolve incompetence, which is the default mode of the universe)

4. Invite them to an event or function and then profusely apologize when you realize you’ve forgotten your wallet. Offer to repay them later or treat them the next time out. (Testing: how they relate to money issues. Wonderful people sometimes turn into irrational monsters as soon as even a few dollars are involved. It drives me crazy to keep a running ledger of who owes whom for a few dollars here and there, especially in social settings. Repaying the favor is mandatory, but dwelling on differences of pennies is tiring.)

Link.

Apparently a lot of people were sort of dismayed and alarmed, but as I read through his ideas, they didn’t look so shocking. And short of experimentation (of which I am a certain proponent), there’s something else I realized. As far as I can recall, the people I choose to spend my time with have already passed “tests”, just like those. They’re the people who chill in the face of uncertainty or loss of control. (Although if we’re going to talk about control, well… that’s an issue of mine.) They’re the ones who don’t get flustered when time or money or expectations get a little bent out of shape. I don’t think I ever thought about it that way, but as far as I can tell, it’s true. I wouldn’t expect any undue reactions to any of these things, from any of the people whose company I enjoy, whom I trust. Sure, I guess I could be wrong—but just think what an excellent gauge of character some of those “experiments” are. Tim’s got a point. (Especially about incompetence being the default mode of the universe. Oops!)

As regards experimenting on people you don’t know well, well, who knows! I don’t think it’s a particularly horrible thing to do to a person. It could perhaps become misguided! I don’t know that I will engage in it, but it doesn’t seem like a terribly bad idea. Maybe we’d all get a little wiser with the purposeful application of calamity.

I probably would, anyway.

I guess you’ll have to wonder the next time something wreaks havoc on our schedule. ;}

Update: He has a follow-up at the end of this post—apparently quite a few people were annoyed. Interesting!

I adore this post in Tim Ferriss’ blog:

What Happens When an Agnostic Follows the Bible Literally for One Year?

I encountered the story about AJ Jacobs a few times over the last few weeks (this is the same guy who wrote the radical honesty piece for Esquire) but hadn’t had a chance to really look at it. In this entry, Tim does an interview and the result is a really nice summary of what’s going on, and what everyone thinks about it. If you have any interest in religion, you should definitely take a look at this! There are definitely negative and positive aspects of the experiment, and I think I know people who will be particularly surprised by one or the other. Definitely take a look if you have a moment. Awesome.

Remember this: Would you like to rephrase that more positively? Yes, that. Remember that?

Tonight Tim Ferriss made a post regarding the ejection of certain words from one’s vocabulary. He suggests this for slightly different reasons than I originally discussed, but still interesting, still valid! He takes familiar staples such as ‘should’ and adds grand old warhorses such as ‘happiness’ and ‘success’ (and ‘good/right’ and ‘bad/wrong’). I happen to think he’s absolutely right. And also, er, absolutely correct.

Tim (who sometimes links multisyllabic words to their entries in Wikipedia as if to say, ‘Look at this cool word I know’, which is exactly what I would do) suggests that the usage of words such as these does not require a lot of complex thought, which is why we have used them to the point of meaninglessness – and might consider exercising our brains in order to find suitable alternatives that better describe the situation at hand. We love them, he says:

Because they remove the heavy lifting of real thinking. These socially-accepted throwaway terms are crutches for unclear thinking, just like “thing”, “stuff”, or “interesting”–enemies of good writers worldwide.

If you stop for a moment and think about it… there are quite a few words that are likewise easy to use. I sure as hell use them! Perhaps we should all spend our next date night with a raspberry merlot and a thesaurus…

Should. You know, scouring this entry for instances of Tim’s outlawed words is a pain in the ass, this late at night. (And ‘should’ was the one I’d ditched already!) But I still think he’s got a point. I definitely see the weakness in myself, and it sounds like an interesting challenge – especially since half the words he listed are words I use over and over and over. And over.

Sounds like rather a fun game, actually. Want to play?

I’m feeling crazy.