Two things:

> In my experience, whenever you unpack somebody, you inevitably discover something extremely weird about them. [...]

I've spoken to ca. 300 people through the Say Hi page on my site. All of them, without a single exception, and I am not exaggerating, were beautifully weird people.

(When a random person calls me, I usually start the call with "So, who/why the fuck are you?". It's cheesy, even for my standards, but it works really well for what I'm getting out of these calls.) God, I wish I had the ease of photographers like Mary Ellen Mark, being able to approach people like that more often, being able to tap into that weirdness with even more people.

> Do any aspects of this job resemble things you’ve done before, and did you like doing those things? Not “Did you like being known as a person who does those things?” or “Do you like having done those things?” [...] > These questions sound so stupid that it’s no wonder no one asks them, and yet, somehow, the answers often surprise us.

In my experience (including the calls I've had in the past), that's not necessarily true -- I ask those questions myself all the time, sometimes to the point of overthinking instead of just trying things out. For me, a better question is: what is the specific thing that attracts me to the idea of doing x/becoming x. What is the feeling I'm looking for/getting when thinking about this? It's not that much different from the question mentioned by the author, but (to me) it feels more productive and leads to more actionable results.