From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
a compelling call to action that will stay with you long after you've turned the last page.
We have learned that the things that matter are not the physical, and material things. What matters in life is hope. Tomorrow is not a given, and we must be happy about small things and we must seize the day.
I want to free everyone from that misconception. You can't know everything. And when you shift from a personal attribution for not knowing—thinking, 'I don't know, but everyone else seems to, so I'll fake it or avoid the situation'—to a universal attribution—realizing, 'I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows'—you stand taller. This allows you to embrace what I believe is the most successful mindset: confident uncertainty.
Human beings can become impaired through physical, mental or sensory limitations; but that does not become a disability until that impairment stops them from participating in community life.
If you fail many times in life, it can be frustrating, but, if you look differently at that, you can see that if you fail many times, you get up many times. If you didn't get up after the first fall, you could never have fought. Failure just means you got knocked down.
Behind every free‑will decision there must be comprehension and intention—and that's where consciousness comes in: the capacity to understand the meaning of symbols. In science, 'information' refers only to the probability of symbols occurring, not to their meaning. Thus science's definition of information discards meaning from reality, but for conscious beings, meaning—not the symbol itself—is what truly matters.
We can expand our circle of sympathy – we can employ the logic of impartiality, and the emotional prompts of human contact and vicarious experience, and expand our fellow-feeling from our family to our clan, our nation, tribe, and from there to all of humanity and even other sentient beings.
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.
Anti-goals are all about what you refuse to give up while chasing those goals. The trap a lot of people fall into is getting so laser-focused on the target that everything else just fades away. You put on blinders.
Indeed, these concepts transcend our natural intuition, but I firmly believe they aren't beyond our grasp. As Einstein marveled, the universe seems to be comprehensible.
You become immune to the evils of criticism and flattery and enjoy a fundamental self-esteem and not a desire for self-image. This is dependent on others and can be taken away any time you are not validated.
I don't care about legacy – not because I'm not thinking of legacy, but because I'm thinking about how to make the greatest positive difference in the current moment I'm living in, and not obsessing about how I'll be looked back on. You're setting yourself up for misery if you focus too much on legacy honestly, but if you try and make a positive difference in the current moment of your life, you're doing the right thing.