On Questions
A bunch of genius questions I invented
When a new employee joins a company, we ask them: "Are you a dog person or a cat person?" The idiot choir erupts in joy and jubilation for this profound insight into this person's character. Without fail, we follow up with the mother of all questions: "Where are you on Pineapple and pizza?" That's when I usually lose the ability to maintain a non-hostile look on my face
The source of this brain-dead activity is not stupidity. It's our constant insistence on softening and mellowing everything. We suck the life out of life. Here's a nice question when welcoming a new colleague: "What are your views on Gaza? Is it a genocide or are you part of the problem?" That's a terrible question because it only has one right answer. But it sure as fuck gets the conversation going. You can already tell a lot...
But if you really wanted to have a friendly question, without it being brain-dead or inducing cerebral hemorrhage in others, here are a few that I've invented over the years. In my experience, every time I ask these to a room, real connection between people happens because they realize how different they are on such strange levels they never considered before.
The following are my inventions. They're dear to me to a strange level.
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When you're peeling a banana... what is the correct number of segments? Of course we all know it's three roughly equal segments. Some people might say 4. They're wrong regardless of the type of banana. But that's fine. The real psychos are the ones that say: "I don't care", "I never thought about that". How can you not think of this? I know exactly what kind of person you are...
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Fashion question: Light color, dark color. Which one goes on the bottom, which one goes on top?
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Love... is it a summer feeling or a winter feeling? Like the emotion of it... the human experience... is that a cold weather thing or a warm weather thing... nothing will get a room full of international people going like this question. 'Cause everyone is so sure of their position. The people to watch out for are what I like to call: "the conversational jews". These are the people that never answer the question. They ask more clarifying questions like: "Do you mean like finding love or..." "Is this about sex?" "What do you mean by love"... Yuk.... They're like the Jews in the story of Moses and the cow in the Quran.... Better watch out for these people. They can't take sides. You'll never see them stick their neck out for anything....
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Show somebody a picture of it and ask: Is this sunset or sunrise
