From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
An appreciation of entropy is necessary to grasp that we are not entitled to wellbeing, progress, comfort, or health. The forces of the universe are- at best, indifferent- at worse, antipathetic- to our interests. Left to their own devices, things get worse.
I've done what society tells you is successful, only to feel really empty and alone inside. True success is the discovery of your authentic self—discovering who you are before any wounding, trauma, or limitations were created in your life's journey.
Since citizens' militias are anachronistic, gun owners now use the second amendment merely to defend individual gun ownership, as if that somehow offers protection against tyranny. A reckless, right-wing Supreme Court has agreed with them. As a result, gun ownership has become perversely linked to freedom in the vast gun-owning American sub-culture. But, instead of protection of freedom, Americans nowadays are getting massive bloodshed and fear.
We have the power of knowledge- for example to save the whales. The whales are obviously not going to save us. We need to have solidarity among humans, that the big problems we are facing, that affect all of humanity and we all equally have the responsibility to do something about it.
I don't think there is anything about putting your country first that requires you to turn your back on the rest of the world. If anything, the opposite is true.
Images are mediations between the world and human beings. Human beings 'ex-ist,' i.e. the world is not immediately accessible to them and therefore images are needed to make it comprehensible.
Unlike the common societal and professional desire to dismiss these responses as merely negative—viewing depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts as things to eliminate—I believe we should examine them more closely. How is drinking serving you? When we shift from judging to listening, people start to understand.
The inexpressible depth of music... easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all of the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain.
I look at every negotiation as an opportunity to solve a problem between me and the other negotiator. They are not my adversary – I need them – and they need me.
Consider a car with malfunctioning brakes; it's unsafe to let it on the street, as it could cause harm. You'd need to confine it, but you wouldn't punish it or moralize its malfunction. Instead, you'd seek to understand why its brakes failed.
examines the research behind diversity and discrimination while grounding them in personal narratives, highlighting our common humanity.
There's a great quote that is 'political correctness is tyranny with manners'.