From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
In a society where everything is for sale, life is harder for those of modest means. The more money can buy, the more affluence (or the lack of it) matters.
I hated it! I absolutely hated it without knowing why really, at that age. And these two contrasting images in a way became symbols for the rest of my life and the way I think about wildlife. One is how not to keep them, and one is how to leave them alone where they should be.
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Think about a rabbit sitting in a field. If that rabbit saw a hawk circling above and decided to wait for the back-propagation step before responding, it would be dead. The better you model the world, and the faster you can act on that model, the more likely your genes are to survive.
Dress is the way in which individuals learn to live in their bodies and feel at home in them.
Caregiving taught me about the dual nature of love—it's both an internal and external commitment. This created a symbiotic and reciprocal relationship; in giving, I received abundantly, and we both were uplifted. Love became an animating force in our lives, guiding us through both dark and light moments.
Ultimately, when my time comes, my aspiration is to be greeted by God's approval, hearing Him say, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant.' Stripping away all else, that is the essence of success to me.
We're outnumbered by bacteria 1.3:1, we're slightly more bacteria than we are human. We're also stardust. We are also 60% water, and that water in our bodies is billions of years old. At an atomic level, 98% of the hydrogen in our bodies came from the bigbang. We're incredibly ancient beings, perhaps we should see ourselves as aliens!
The ultimate goal is to be in a state of flow with machines. Think about people working with horses, or herding cattle with a dog, they are examples of interactions with other intelligent creatures in a way which is fluid and allows us to achieve something we couldn't do ourselves.
I came away from space flight realising that I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. Life is so amazing. When you look at the universe and the forces of nature, there just has to be a creator.
My wife quipped that we're all going to die and it just happened to be her turn. Her pragmatic and humorous attitude was a guide as to how to accept what is unchangeable and inevitable.
Only the educated are free.