From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Just take a look for example, at NFL players with pink socks, bringing their babies on the field. You would never have seen that just 10 years ago. The culture is changing as we speak.
So many things in life divide us – the colour of our skin, the language we speak, the god we worship, but when we run, we're the same. When we run, we're united, it's a commonality across our species like nothing else.
The mythology tells us that you come to the valley and forge your own path, but in reality young people come here and are asked to essentially create careers that are a daisy chain of gigs on mini-innovation projects within large corporations.
The sustainability of traditions relies on their ability to evolve. This was the crux of my message: how can we help this tradition evolve? Because at that time, it was certainly losing its vitality.
It's fair to say that life felt more secure 40 years ago. You felt safer in your home, on the streets, in school, you just felt safer. If people suggest that humanity is becoming less 'human' – it's because we've allowed civilized conduct to deteriorate and that's what I've fought against for my entire professional career.
The general body of research suggests a moderate positive correlation between religiosity and happiness. Religion provides a sense of community and cohesion within an in-group. It draws clear lines between in-group members, with whom I can engage in cooperative behaviour and reciprocal exchanges, and out-group members. Religion also offers purpose and meaning through a supernatural narrative.
History is the story of those who wrote it… I have been trying very hard to add people back into the history of art who should have been there all along. I see this like Pompeii, these artists exist, but they're covered in ash. We must excavate them.
Only relatively recently in our own culture, five hundred years or so ago, did a distinction arise that cut society in two, forming separate classes of music performers and music listeners.
I started writing fiction because I was lonely. I was an only child, a solitary child, raised by a single working mother, which was very unusual at the time in Turkey. Literature gave me a sense of continuity, coherence; it kept my pieces together. It helped me to connect even when I felt like I didn't quite belong.
For the most part, there are more average celebrities than superstars. When most people think of celebrities, they think of A-listers, but there's also B-list, C-list, D-list, F-list and even Z-list... he gets all the perks of celebrity, without much of the negativity that comes from being an A-lister.
Good attention is very valuable. In 2017 unlike 2007 when I was yelling about this stuff, people now understand that personal brands are leverage. When you have people's attention, and especially if they think you have value, you can do amazing things.
Fashion predominantly concerns itself with trends – trousers transforming from wide to short, flares coming in and out of vogue, shoulder lines expanding and contracting. These shifts are transient, epitomising the fleeting nature of fashion. On the other hand, style demonstrates longevity – it truly stands the test of time.