Thanks to Rita who posted the wonderful
'classical music with shining eyes' video some days ago, I found the
TED talks channel with a huge collection of amazing talks about all kinds of things. Since then I have been hooked and spent several hours watching talks this weekend.
I'd like to share some of my favourites with you. It would be great if other people could add their favourite talks to this topic, too.
I will probably edit more talks into this post over the next days, but for now I will start with one that I was completely flabbergasted by, because the speaker, Barry Schwartz, talks about exactly the same thing I have been thinking about for many years and that I always called the balance between freedom and safety (I think discussions about this came up here in the forum on several occasions, too), meaning that the more options you have the less safe and stable you feel, which often results in reduced happiness and even clinical depression and which I think is true for all areas of life, be it private life or political systems. Of course many people know about that, but until now I have not seen it expressed as clearly and nicely as Mr. Schwartz does it during the TED meeting. So here is the talk:
The paradox of choiceSomething that is completely different from the things I usually spend my (work) time with but what I found very inspirational is a talk by Ray Anderson, owner of a carpet company, who speaks about his company's approach to producing without harming the planet:
The business logic of sustainabilityAnd another one that I think is totally delightful:
The story of a passionate life, where Ben Dunlap speaks about his student, mentor and friend Sandor Teszler, a Hungarian jew who had survived the Holocaust and started a new life in the US.