PUZZLES: What Crosswords, Riddles, and Wordle Can Teach You About the Meaning of Life

The Next Big Idea

Next Big Idea Club

Self-improvement, Arts, Books, Society & Culture, Education

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2022

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For the last 25 years, writer A.J. Jacobs has attempted to live his life as a human guinea pig. “I’ve engaged in a series of experiments on my mind and body,” he says, “some of which have been fruitful, some humiliating failures. I’ve tried to understand the world by immersing myself in extraordinary circumstances.” His book “The Know-It-All” chronicled his experience reading the encyclopedia from cover to cover. To write “The Year of Living Biblically,” he followed every commandment in the Old Testament, including the edicts stone adulterers and avoid shaving the corners of your beard. Now A.J. is back with a new immersive memoir, “The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life.” --- Want to get smart, fast? Want to hear hundreds of the world's leading authors share key insights from their books? Download the Next Big Idea app today: nextbigideaclub.com/app

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	LinkedIn presents.
0:06.5	I'm Rufus Griskem, and this is the next big idea.
0:10.5	Today, what solving puzzles can teach you about the meaning of life?
0:31.0	Every night at 10 o'clock, AJ Jacobs logs into his computer and starts furiously refreshing his web browser.
0:41.0	Click, click, click, click, click, he's an addict.
0:45.0	And if this stupid website would just load already, he could get his fix.
0:49.0	You may be thinking that AJ is refreshing a page on some God forsaken corner of the dark web,
0:55.0	he's actually at www.neurotimes.com slash crossword.
1:00.0	You see, the Neurotimes releases the next day's crossword puzzle every night at 10 o'clock p.m.
1:06.0	And AJ simply has to start solving it as soon as it's available.
1:11.0	Crosswords aren't the only puzzles he's hooked on.
1:14.0	Maze is secret codes, riddles and brand teasers, pangrams, Sudoku's, Jigsaws and Ken Ken's.
1:21.0	AJ can't get enough.
1:23.0	For many people, solving puzzles is a hobby, a way to pass time when they're commuting or stuck inside on a rainy day.
1:30.0	But for AJ, puzzles are an obsession.
1:34.0	One, he's pursued around the globe, from Spain, where he represented the U.S. at the World Jigsaw puzzle championships to Langley, Virginia,
1:42.0	where after a thorough background check, he was brought into CIA headquarters to try to crack a secret code.
1:48.0	Like I said, he's obsessed.
1:51.0	The obsession for AJ is sort of an occupational hazard.
1:55.0	It started almost two decades ago when AJ, then a senior editor at Esquire Magazine, decided he wanted to become the smartest man in the world
2:04.0	by attempting to read the encyclopedia Britannica from cover to cover, all 44 million words.
2:11.0	And guess what? He did it.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Next Big Idea Club, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Next Big Idea Club and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.