From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The will to live together is the fundamental pillar that keeps society going- and that pillar is now under threat. What will we do when we lose the will to live together? That's one of the fundamental questions of our time.
What's beautiful is when you're filling your bank account and your soul account. There are two accounts! You can't chase those goals at the expense of your own character, that makes you a paper tiger, a fool.
In my view, I believe that in 2023, the pinnacle goal of intelligence should be the pursuit of continued existence. I struggle to comprehend why any sentient being would choose any path other than striving for prolonged existence.
A child doesn't even question their situation- I was thrown into a situation and had to respond to it; if I needed food, I had to get food… If I needed shelter, I had to find shelter.
The arrival fallacy is this notion, this psychological trick we play on ourselves, where we repeatedly convince ourselves that happiness, contentment, and fulfilment lie just beyond whatever mountaintop we've set as our ultimate goal. You hit that target you've built up as the finish line, and sure, you get a fleeting rush of dopamine-fuelled euphoria—only to find yourself quickly eyeing a new, distant summit.
What stands out in the tapestry of human behaviour is our identity as storytelling beings, inherently non-rational, often organising our societies around peculiar beliefs. We've evolved within what they term a 'social cage' – a set of rigid rules and beliefs adherence to which determines our belonging to a group.
Critical narratives are centered on the idea of moral complicity in these evils and use very sophisticated rhetorical ways to get people to feel that guilt and to believe in their complicity. They use very obscure language that involves a lot of double-meaning and multiple-meaning to words so that people it confronts feel stupid.
There's only so much our world will become richer by surrounding ourselves with clones of ourselves!
Our emotions are connected to our beliefs and opinions. Epictetus said what causes men suffering is not events, but their opinion about events. That piece of wisdom is very useful because it gives you some ability to have control over your emotions.
Entrepreneurship means the unrelenting belief that there has to be a better way.
The best parenting advice I've ever received came from a friend's father, a humble man from the American South. As he detected my apprehension upon learning of my impending fatherhood, he simply said, 'Andy, you just love them and keep them dry.' This advice, as understated as it may appear, proved to be the most profound parenting counsel I've ever received.
No one man can, for any considerable time, wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which is the true one.