Fear Factor

In David Rendall's, "The Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness" the author acknowledges and embraces our weaknesses. 

He does this by using quotes, statistics, and other data on the way to telling us not to work on our weaknesses. For the most part, his suggestions seem valid; completely ignoring our weaknesses seems a bit far-fetched, but he has good intentions.

My favorite section was "Freak: The Power of Uniqueness". Rather than work to overcome our shortcomings, Rendall suggests that we embrace them; because every weakness is linked to a strength, working to rid ourselves of weakness may ultimately take away our strength. My favorite line in the whole article rounds out the discussion, "...how many people would travel halfway around  

the world to see the Perfectly Vertical and Normal tower of Pisa?" As I stated before, Rendall certainly has good intentions, but I'm not entirely sold on the validity of these statements. Sure, it is inspiring to embrace weaknesses and overcome the naysayers, but I'm sure there are people out there that have failed because they didn't steer away from a weakness. The Tower of Pisa is a great example that is sure to sway some readers, but a comparison of people to buildings strikes me as kind of "out there". I'm just as tempted as the next reader to believe these uplifting examples and other sources; the author has collected a solid amount of data to support his claims, but I wonder how much evidence could be stacked against this argument. I am obviously speculating, but I think it would be foolish to jump headlong into believing Rendall's arguments.

"Flawless: There's Nothing Wrong With You" looks to link strengths with a corresponding weakness. Some of these certainly connect with one another, whereas others are a stretch in my opinion. I think that this section is almost a crutch for people to read and feel better about themselves; this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but rejecting the improvement of weaknesses (as is suggested here) just seems irresponsible. I enjoyed Rendall's section on messiness/disorganization. While I never saw my messiness as a strength, it's interesting to see quotes from Andy Rooney and Einstein swearing by it. Maybe it has contributed to my creativity without me even knowing it. The "Addiction" sub-section was also very interesting; the re-channeling of an addictive personality is something I've thought about often. One of my friends has a very addictive personality coupled with addiction to drugs; when he is able to channel his energies toward something positive, it is impressive what he's able to do. I think that Rendall and Todd Candrell would agree that this type of personality is a gift and a curse.

"Fit: Find the Right Spot" is another section where Rendall uses a good example from a left-field source. The connection between Rudolph and finding your fit is terrific, but I'm still not sold on the author's selection of material. He does use real people sometimes, as in the last paragraph, but it's times like these where I am left scratching my head. A fictional character and a building probably don't have too much to extract in the way of realistic characteristics, but I'll keep it at that. As I stated before, this example is great. It is uplifting due to Rudolph's success in spite of his critics.

As far as my own creative process, I certainly view myself in a negative light (more weaknesses than strength). It is nearly impossible for me to begin on a project; I come up with a lot of ideas, but I struggle to put them in motion. I come up with an idea for a song, video, or lyrics multiple times every day. So I guess I could say that one of my strengths is creativity, and a flaw of mine would be that I'm unmotivated. Once I do start, I tend to be a perfectionist. This usually makes for a relatively good final product at the expense of time and energy. Another weakness of mine is that I have a hard time asking for help. This leads to me focusing more on solo projects and ideas rather than ideas that require a lot of manpower. Conversely, I am very willing to help others with their projects. I wonder if everyone is somewhat self-concious of their own projects despite being willing to help others. I think this goes back to acknowledging the lizard. I am also very unorganized, leading to a lot of lost ideas, possessions, and time searching for each of those things.