What’s a cultural tradition from another country that you wish existed in yours?

Nobody would accuse me of excessive sympathies towards the Chinese. But in the endless conflicts with Chinese teachers that Lenora Chu describes in her book Little Soldiers, I’m mostly on the side of the Chinese teachers.

It is true that the Chinese take the issue of academic competitiveness too far. However, I find it quite ridiculous that in America we make such a state secret out of grades and test scores.

We have bamboozled ourselves into believing the myth that boundless intellectual achievement is possible for everybody. People sincerely believe that if they cannot overcome an intellectual hurdle, it is their fault because they are not trying hard enough. We are trying to protect everybody’s self-esteem by keeping grades, test scores, and the IQ numbers secret. But it has an opposite effect. People blame themselves for things they simply cannot change. You are just as likely to be able to change your intellectual capacity (that is, your brain hardware) as you are to change your height by efforts of willpower. We would be much happier people, and our society would run more rationally, if we abandoned the idea that the intellect is a moral virtue instead of what it actually is, a physiological characteristic.

This is why I wish we adopted the Chinese tradition of making test results public. Not for the reasons for which the Chinese do it, but for our own reasons.

How do you relax?

I have been watching a lot of Netflix documentaries about serial killers. Yes, things at work are that good.

But what I notice about these documentaries is that they all push a single idea: police are bad. They are bad, bad, bad. So bad, in fact, that you end up reaching a conclusion that we’d be better off defunding them all into the infinity.

It takes a lot of ingenuity to get this message into stories about scary serial killers who were apprehended, brought to justice, and removed from society. You’d think that’s an argument in favor of having a criminal justice system. But Netflix keeps redoing Making a Murderer, getting people used to the idea that they should give up everything that guarantees their well-being for their own good.

What traditions have you not kept that your parents had?

I don’t bark at my husband. Ever. Zero husband barking is being engaged in at our house.

I grew up to a steady beat of my mother barking at my father, “Misha! Sit there! No, over here! No, I said right there! Stand! No, sit! Move! Why are you breathing so loud? I can still hear you breathe! Sit up straight! Stop humming!

Almost half a century of that, imagine. But I left that multigenerational family tradition in the past.

How would you describe yourself to someone?

I did a word count, and I’m 1,500 words behind the goal I originally set myself. Those 1,500 words are exactly the number I had to write for another project that cropped up unexpectedly. So yeah, I’m completely on target.

The word I’d use to describe myself is: maniacal.

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A reader. It drove my mother nuts because “you can’t make a living from reading books! And nobody will want to marry you because men are scared of women who are too smart.”

Look who was right this whole time.

What’s something most people don’t understand?

Themselves. Most people have a better understanding of quantum physics than of who they really are.

A good rule of thumb is this. When somebody says, “I’m the kind of person who”, whatever comes after “who” is the exact opposite of what they are like.

People who keep using the words “revolutionary” and “rebellious” are the biggest conformists in existence. People who keep harping on their laziness are the most hard-working bastards out there.

“I’m very cautious and distrustful” said recently an acquaintance who has fallen for more phone scams than I have hairs on my head. Self-awareness is the rarest of qualities.

What is one word that describes you?

I know which word I’d use but what say you, readers? How would you describe me in one word?

You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?

This new blogging app gives writing prompts. This was today’s. My answer is, I’d start my autobiography with the words “Mine is a life plagued by ear infections.”

I think I have an ear infection. Again. This will be the second one in less than a year.

And that’s the reason I won’t write an autobiography because who wants to read about repetitive ear infections?