Favorites

It is always challenging to pick one. For anything in life. I always find it amusing when people quickly say - favorite color, favorite city, favorite restaurant etc etc. I cannot. For anything, I have multiple. When people ask what is the best place that you have been to. I go - every place I have been to was beautiful in some way, but few were so distinct that no other place can be like that. Very unique. Kauai, Venice, Santorini.. then I go… well, Cinque Terre was good too, Florence.. and then I stop. How can someone have one favorite? None of the historical places come to the list, Switzerland didn't even pop in the list!

The same is true for books. But I know for sure that 'Thinking fast and slow' was one of the books that will come among very few, if not the single most book that I loved. Every single word. I believe my life would have been very different if I hadn't read a few books when I read. Bhartrihari, Thinking fast and slow, freakonomics, sometimes brilliant, Feynman etc etc. Perfect timing. I am reading 'The undoing project' these days, which explores the partnership and work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, the outcome of which was Thinking fast and slow. There is no reason to not like this book - "Man is a deterministic device thrown into a probabilistic universe. In this match, surprises are expected." Or "A new definition of the nerd: a person who knows his mind well enough to mistrust it". Or this -

"It's hard to know how people select a course in life," Amos said. "The big choices we make are practically random. The small choices probably tell us more about who we are. Which field we go into may depend on which high school teacher we happen to meet. Who we marry may depend on who happens to be around at the right time of life.

On the other hand, the small decisions are very systematic. That I became a psychologist is probably not very revealing. What kind of psychologist I am may reflect deep traits."

Just a few favorites spot in the book to quote.