Cool article, what really got me was the line "Thinking hard makes sense if you want answers; it makes less sense if the highest reward you anticipate from your intellectual efforts is surprise".
I have been turning this over in my brain a lot, I wonder if I'm more of an "essayist" than a "philosopher", at least in terms of what I'm trying to be, I'm not claiming to be a philosopher here. I like thinking "hey! thats an interesting and new insight!" but maybe thats not the most important intellectual goal?