European nations began World War I with a glamorous vision of war, only to be psychologically shattered by the realities of the trenches. The experience changed the way people referred to the glamour of battle; they treated it no longer as a positive quality but as a dangerous illusion.
I think it’s been hard for people to understand how Islam can be a good religion, and yet the Islamists are evil. Those of us who have had experience with Islam understand this, just as we understand the difference between snake handlers and people going to church on Sunday morning.
I think theatre must be an event, an experience, not compete with cinema. When people are able to download stories on Netflix, you need to give them a good reason to jump into the car and drive two hours. It has to be something you can only see in the theatre, and it has to be worth it.
I think, for many teens, a fundamental fact of the teenage experience is that you’re in between this childlike state, in which you’re told you’re completely unqualified for just about anything in the adult world, and this adult world, where you’re being told you have to be responsible, and you’re just trying to figure out where you stand.
The world sometimes feels like an insane asylum. You can decide whether you want to be an inmate or pick up your visitor’s badge. You can be in the world but not engage in the melodrama of it; you can become a spiritual being having a human experience thoroughly and fully.
Along the way, let’s never forget that once we were children and that we were all playing together without distinction of skin color, society level, or where people come from. Adults need to remember to play and to be more childlike in our behavior. We’ve forgotten what that childlike experience was like.
It is pure mythology that women cannot perform as well as men in science, engineering and mathematics. In my experience, the opposite is true: Women are often more adept and patient at untangling complex problems, multitasking, seeing the possibilities in new solutions and winning team support for collaborative action.
The experience of reading a printed comic book will never change, but now, thanks to the digital age, there are many different ways to enjoy the same story. Digital comic books, of course, can be interactive in many different ways, allowing the reader to feel like a participant in the story.
It’s interesting: when your wife is pregnant and you’re expecting, everyone’s like, ‘It’s incredible. Get ready. It’s magic. It’s the most life-changing experience you’ll ever have. Brace yourself for heaven.’ And then the second the baby comes, everyone’s like, ‘Welcome to hell! Ha ha ha! You fool!’
I understand now that the vulnerability I’ve always felt is the greatest strength a person can have. You can’t experience life without feeling life. What I’ve learned is that being vulnerable to somebody you love is not a weakness, it’s a strength.
Sports teaches you to understand the meaning of a team. You need to be able to work with everybody; you don’t have to be their best friend. You can experience the fun of competition and driving toward a common goal without pushing to bond in some major way with each individual on a project.
If you are lucky enough to never experience any sort of adversity, we won’t know how resilient you are. It’s only when you’re faced with obstacles, stress, and other environmental threats that resilience, or the lack of it, emerges: Do you succumb or do you surmount?
Life is difficult. Not just for me or other ALS patients. Life is difficult for everyone. Finding ways to make life meaningful and purposeful and rewarding, doing the activities that you love and spending time with the people that you love – I think that’s the meaning of this human experience.
A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.
As human beings, we are vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable. In our everyday experience, if something has never happened before, we are generally safe in assuming it is not going to happen in the future, but the exceptions can kill you and climate change is one of those exceptions.
I very rarely came across rude or disrespectful people. I don’t know how I slipped by all of them, but I honestly can’t think of one experience off the top of my head that was like that. I’m sure they’re there, but I’d have to think really hard to recall them.
The Italians and Spanish, the Chinese and Vietnamese see food as part of a larger, more essential and pleasurable part of daily life. Not as an experience to be collected or bragged about – or as a ritual like filling up a car – but as something else that gives pleasure, like sex or music, or a good nap in the afternoon.
Auditioning is a horrible experience because you know you are being absolutely scrutinized and judged. There are days where you can do it and days where it’s just not happening, and I feel like that’s how it is with all artists; you have some days it kind of works.
The mind of a 19-year-old is very different from the mind of a 26-year-old. You grow. You get into better relationships. You experience more, meet more people, better people. But when you’re in a dark hole at an earlier point in your life – you write about the mindset you’re in at that moment.
One of the first pieces of advice I was ever given, on my first job was, you should always buy something to treat yourself to say well done for getting the job! However I’ve not followed on that through yet… I’ve always wanted a tattoo, something to mark my experience.
And I came away from that experience, and it was a very difficult experience – I came to understand that you have to practice at being a good father and practice at being a good husband, just as you have to practice at being a good journalist.
There are pros and cons of experience. A con is that you can’t look at the business with a fresh pair of eyes and as objectively as if you were a new CEO. Fire yourself on a Friday night and come in on Monday morning as if a search firm put you there as a turn-around leader. Can you be objective and make the bold change?
For long-duration exploration missions, NASA is looking for folks with a lot of operational, hands-on experience, people who have been in field-type situations such as military deployments. In my case, I worked in the Congo and in Biosafety Level 4 labs on smallpox.
I have my team. Like if you see everyone around me – I have my hair and makeup girl, my assistant. They’re very calm, they’re all about positive energy. There’re no drama queens. Everyone wants everyone else to have a positive experience. There are no agendas. I think it creates a healthy environment and there are no boundaries to cross.
A good memory is surely a compost heap that converts experience to wisdom, creativity, or dottiness; not that these things are of much earthly value, but at least they may keep you amused when the world is keeping you locked away or shutting you out.
