From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Food is not just sustenance. It's memory, it's culture, it's identity. When I cook, I'm telling the story of my grandmother, my mother, the streets of Amritsar where I grew up.
We took bold risks with unconventional styles and vibrant hues, but the crux of the matter remained that our marketing image always resonated with a particular sense of cool. It created this compelling narrative: if you owned a pair of UGG boots, you were undoubtedly cool.
Sleep became not just devalued but actively scorned. After all, every hour spent sleeping was another hour spent not working—therefore another wasted hour.
The Pritzker Prize recognizes not just technical excellence, but architects who have made a significant contribution to humanity through the built environment.
We tend to go deeper with that in terms of specific facial expressions, body language, and vocal tone. And I think what's important to know there is that we often make a lot of mistakes when we're reading other people's emotions because we bring in our own cultural values, our own belief systems, and we oftentimes project emotions onto people as opposed to really knowing how they're feeling.
I can't look an African-American parent in the eye for thinking about what they must tell their sons about what can happen to them on the streets of their country.
It takes intellectuals to come up with some of the most moronic ideas possible.
When I first began, the word 'miscarriage' was so heavy on my tongue that I couldn't utter it. The sense of shame was so overwhelming. There's this societal expectation that women's bodies are designed for childbearing, yet there's a deafening silence around what to do when things don't go as planned.
I am hopeful that we, in Western countries, are on the path towards a post-homophobic society. I was very gratified a couple of years ago to see a survey of 16-24 year olds. When asked about their own sexuality, 49% said they would not define themselves as 100% straight.
There are cultures in which a young man, to signal his interest in a woman, would camp outside her house for any number of days. The ones who aren't really interested say, '...to hell with it, it's not worth it!' – In this sense, signalling screens people out.
In reality, India is not as divided as you might think… hundreds of millions of Muslims live and work in India, they are friends with people in and out of their community, and just live normal lives like anyone else.
While participatory culture can create a Wikipedia, it is not likely to produce something like the Star Wars franchise. I don't think that's a problem, because I don't think we have to choose between participatory and top-down culture – both will thrive.