The journey we're on doesn't necessarily have a fixed destination; rather, it's about moving in the right direction. The purpose of life is to decipher your own purpose in life. This isn't a contradictory statement; rather, it's a necessary paradox. We exist in order to uncover the reasons for our existence.
— Kevin Kelly Founding Executive Editor of Wired Magazine & Technology ThinkerIf I ask better questions, they come up with better answers.
There's also a great metaphor from the world of automotive technology. The main naysayers against cars were probably the drivers of carriages in the streets of New York. At some point, the Model T factory was open. And suddenly you're looking around, you're looking at the friend that is driving a car and you're saying, wait a second – he doesn't need a barn to house your horse.
Twitter, Facebook and Instagram were play attention games – they reward creators with 'status points,' likes, retweets and quote tweets for example. Those rewards come to those who are best at monopolising attention… that's not the same thing as telling the truth or acting in good faith. The things that get rewarded in those systems are things that provoke, divide and drive outrage – so we end up with a broken media economy that drives us all crazy and doesn't represent the best version of ourselves.
If you are someone who has generated wealth, you have the responsibility to make sure this money is used to benefit the community. This is something that exists in all philosophies, cultures, and all religions. You have an obligation to the people around you, and your society.
Cinema and drama are also changing perceptions in India. This certainly happened with Made in Heaven which was commercially entertaining, but had a main character who was Gay. It blew everyone away and started an important conversation which was really encouraging.
As an entrepreneur, you're often doing things that haven't been done before, or doing them in ways that break the mould. All sorts of people are telling you, 'No, that's not how it's done,' and you're constantly running into obstacles. Without a lot of self-confidence, you can't even get started.
To be a happy human being, we must each have an extraordinary life and an ordinary life. We need both to be connected and happy. We were born to find what we can be extraordinary at, alongside leading our ordinary lives. The important thing is to find both lives and hold onto them.
For thousands of years, sport has existed alongside religion as the pre-eminent medium through which social bonding takes place, and in contemporary culture football has become the pre-eminent sport of the world.
People have regarded as a paradox- the fact that Newton spent most of his time doing alchemy, which doesn't sound very scientific, and only part of his time doing mechanics and gravitation. Of course, his discoveries in mechanics and his law of gravitation were absolutely foundational to all of quantitative science, engineering, technology and, indeed, everything that came after
Size continues to be important, but is no longer the main factor shielding the powerful from the challenges of newcomers and new arrivals.
We estimate that in talking about the cross-border flows of illicit money the component that is due to corruption- i.e. bribery and theft by government officials, is around 3-5% of the global total. It is very much the smaller part of the equation.
A particular individual trait that has piqued my interest through research is intellectual humility. Embracing the possibility of being wrong enhances the likelihood of being right—a somewhat magical paradox. This notion dovetails with the scientific ethos, where the quest isn't about proving oneself right.