What is your worst intellectual habit?

Originally asked

Vox, to writers and thinkers, 9 Questions, 2017

Vox's fixed 9 Questions format asks this verbatim across respondents.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Courtney Maum said elsewhere, not written here
I’m too quick to jump to a negative conclusion. For example, if I’ve had a book come out recently and I’m with a friend who doesn’t mention it, instead of thinking, “This person hasn’t mentioned my book because they’re busy and haven’t had time to purchase it, much less read it, and that doesn’t mean that they don’t like me,” I will go to, “This person doesn’t care about me,” which is such a terrible, self-centered way to think. People really are busy and their world doesn’t stop just because I’ve published a novel.

Sean Illing, Vox, “9 questions” series, 15 July 2017 source ↗

Others on this question

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Adam Gopnik Staff writer at The New Yorker; essayist
My very wise and politically savvy 17-year-old daughter says I get too emotional about political issues. I think she’s right. She knows that if she sees me race across a room, I have just read something about Trump. Turning ideas into feelings is the thing an essayist is supposed to do, but political punditry should probably be more detached.
Recorded Sean Illing, Vox, “9 questions” series, 16 September 2017 source ↗
Fareed Zakaria Journalist and author; host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS
Wasting time reading blogs, magazines, newspapers. They have their place but they can become an addiction. And the real ways to gain understanding about issues are reading books and traveling.
Recorded Sean Illing, Vox, “9 questions” series, 20 May 2017 source ↗
Henry Rollins Musician, writer and broadcaster
Rushing to judgment. Looking for the bad in someone else before anything else.
Recorded Sean Illing, Vox, "9 questions" series, 8 April 2017 source ↗
Dominique Dawes Olympic gymnast; three-time Olympian and gold medallist
My worst intellectual habit has to be overanalyzing everything. I do it all the time, because there are too many options in this world.
Recorded Sean Illing, Vox, “9 questions” series, 24 June 2017 source ↗

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