Today more than ever we need creative minds to address the issues of the age. And one of the most urgent is this: How can humanity know so much, achieve so much, and still fail so many people so badly?
The signs that the world is spinning out of kilter are increasingly difficult to misinterpret. The question is how to convince enough people to join a critical mass of urgent opinion, in the U.S. and the rest of the world.
It is urgent to shift from a traditional, authoritative, rote educational approach to a project-based and experiential approach. Specific hard skills are fundamental, but is even more important that students 'learn how to learn' and focus on crucial soft skills such as flexibility and the ability to adapt to change.
For me, reworking the past over and over again is a way not to trivialise the garments and not to obsess over hem lengths. What I am interested in, as a matter of fact, is telling a story and, if someone sees fragments of other stories in it, be my guest. I don't have to justify myself. What is urgent for me is what I want to say.
The memoirs that have come out of Africa are sometimes startlingly beautiful, often urgent, and essentially life-affirming, but they are all performances of courage and honesty.
It is common to distinguish necessaries, comforts, and luxuries; the first class including all things required to meet wants which must be satisfied, while the latter consist of things that meet wants of a less urgent character.
I am not facing the problem of emigration. I want my music to be acknowledged here first of all, in this country: after that, we shall see - perhaps the question will than become urgent.
Time and again, a student will send me an urgent appeal to hear her, saying she is poor and wants my advice as to whether it is worthwhile to continue her studies. I invariably refuse such requests, saying that if the student could give up her work on my advice, she had better give it up without it.
Never short of guns and guerrillas, Afghanistan has proven fertile ground for a host of insurgent groups in addition to the Taliban.
The best advice I ever received is that there is a difference between urgency and importance: Urgent tasks seem important, but they're not. Important things need to get done.
