had all the time in the world I’m
somehow certain that he wouldn’t want to
spend it with me but for the next you
know quarter of an hour or so we’re
gonna be talking to each other I’m gonna
be talking to you either and let’s make
this worth your a while I didn’t bring
any distractions because I want this to
be I want this to feel whether not being
rushed not being distracted not being
hectic in any shape or form so the one
thing is that I’m asking you is you know
let’s not feel rushed and I want to talk
to you about one thing is I didn’t bring
any slides you know I didn’t bring any
slides no pictures no nothing no video
so you just have to focus on me and what
I have to tell you so and I want to what
I want you to think about a work
situation you know your usual work
situation that you probably encounter
each and every day you know there’s this
constant barrage of you know telephone
calls meetings emails letters some
people still do write and and other
things that are going on in the office
and they’re always your colleagues you
know mind you not the evil co-worker but
really nice and well-meaning colleagues
of yours and they always come up to you
and you’ve probably do the same thing I
do the same thing and they say may have
a second do you have a moment you know I
just need you for one quick thing but do
you realize at the end of the day that
it is that infinite number of moment
after second after you know anything
that is draining all that energy from
you where at the end of the work day you
feel like you haven’t gotten anything
done because everybody is chipping away
from your work time and you don’t have
that big chunk that you always want to
concentrate on one thing for three hours
at a time you haven’t gotten anything
done and there’s a big difference
between being overwhelmed by work being
crushed by the workload and being on top
of things you know and I sometimes feel
that we are living in somewhat hectic
times and that we don’t give ourselves
the time you know to experience moments
of tranquility and beauty that are so
crucial for each and every one of us for
that is why I want to talk to you about
the book that I’m currently writing that
will be published next year and that is
called precisely things take time it’s
30 chapters you know running across many
cultures and disciplines and it is about
the capability and our capacity to think
in the long term to think across
generations I want to tell you one
little joke that also made me write that
book you know just imagine look at like
a cartoon and you have two planets one
of them is planet Earth and the planet
that is not planet Earth turns to Planet
Earth and says what’s wrong with you you
look sick and planet Earth goes I got
Homo sapiens and the other planet goes
don’t worry it’ll go away so the thing
is on the meta level of things you know
we’re only gonna be here for a split
second on this very planet we’ve been
around for two hundred thousand years
and your guess is as good as mine for
much longer we’re gonna be here on this
planet so my book is not focusing on the
pyramids or on the Great Wall of China
all amazing achievements but they are
there to praise the powers in charge I’m
looking for the little things and I want
to give you one example think about
architects think about architects in the
north eastern region of England in the
18th century they were building country
houses and every time they build a
country house not every time they build
country else but some architects of
those architects you know what they were
doing they were planting seeds seeds for
trees right next to that house why
because they knew that in 200 300 years
time the roof structure of that very
country house that they’re building
would be you know disintegrating and
they knew that then those trees could be
felled and they could be used to
reestablish that roof structure that is
pretty amazing that we have that
capability of thinking ahead for so long
think about the starchitects of today
think about the sustainability of their
buildings think about the cluttering of
cities of all these Olympic villages you
know when Olympic Games were being run
all across the world where are those
long thoughts that make these things
sustainable and this is what I’m
focusing on but I want to get back to
one little thing and that is I was
talking about distraction distraction at
the workplace but there’s also
distraction going on you know doing your
spare time I’m talking of course about
social media I’m talking about the
internet and talking about every time
you look at your iPhone or you look at
you know a computer screen Instagram you
know all these apps Facebook snapchat
you know what they’re building their
business case on they are building their
business case on distraction they’re
building the business case on getting
your attention every step of the way you
know when I talked about colleagues in
the workplace
that’s what pop-ups are you know they’re
always come and you know make you do
something else than what you really
wanted to do and that is kind of
interesting that their business case is
built on interruption and it’s an
attention competition out there and
they’re trying to grab your attention
but you probably also have realized I
don’t know in the past year or something
like that a certain backlash going on
you know they’re trolls they’re fake
knows there’s hate speech there’s all
these things going on on the internet
that you know parents will be able to
tell you teachers will be able to tell
you physicians will be able to tell you
that somehow there’s something going on
that is rather unhealthy and there’s
even internet entrepreneurs like Tristan
Harris you know whose sometimes called
the social conscience or the conscience
rather of Silicon Valley and you know
what he did he just created a company a
few years back called time well-spent
he gives you recommendations of how to
be less distracted because we feel that
this is gnawing away on the mental
health and that is gnawing away on the
pillars of our democracy I am NOT
arguing for digital detox here you know
that’s digital detox I’m because I’m a
fan of the Internet of course and what
it has to offer I don’t know you
probably didn’t study in the 90s but if
you did you might know the term
interlibrary loan you know if you were
doing research and you were looking for
a book at your college campus in the
library and it wasn’t there somebody
they were looking for some library that
had that very book that you
needed only for footnote number 29 in
your turn paper
it took a week and a week and a half
until you got that book today you have
Google Books you know you can stay you
can sit there and just get that
information at your fingertips
but the differentiation that I am here
to make today is that there is a
difference between information and
knowledge you know Wikipedia is
fantastic but it should only be the
beginning of the research and not the
end because otherwise distractions breed
short attention spans and we have a lack
of concentration going on that we can
see in our kids so in the era of
shortcuts that we are living in today I
am arguing for the detour in the era of
algorithms you know that define
everything that we are about to see
every time we look at a screen I am
arguing for serendipity and that ladies
and gentlemen is where the humanities
come in that is what the humanities are
known for in terms of serendipity one
thought I want to share with you is was
first published in 1955 by the German
art historian Irving Panofsky you know
he had to flee Nazi Germany and he was
teaching at NYU later on he was teaching
at Princeton and he wrote a book in 1955
about meaning individual arts and there
he talks about the humanities and he
says an interesting thing he says
humanists cannot be trained they must be
allowed to mature that is very
interesting because it is not the
reading matter of class three or one
that is assigned that you have to feed
your brains with it might be a line of
Spenser it might be lined by Dante it
might be aligned by Erasmus of Rotterdam
it might be aligned by some cryptic
mythographers of the 14th century that
lights your candle that’s what it says
it is not your workload it is when you
go out serendipity where and you find
something and he closes his argument by
saying it is often times where we have
no business to seek that we shall find
it is often times that we have no
business to seek where we shall find it
is very curious to me
in 1955 having Panofsky rotated and
exactly half a century later Steve Jobs
gives his commencement speech at
Stanford University that has been looked
at on YouTube 40 million times and you
know what he talks about in there you’ve
probably all seen it he talks about
dropping out of Reed College
you know the classwork the courses of
course you know he’s a genius that
didn’t really you know makes that much
sense to him but he keeps talking about
a single class that he visited on
typography and on calligraphy that made
all the difference
he wasn’t even enrolled in that class
that’s what I’m talking about where we
have no business to seek that is where
we can find and we need time for that
and you know Steve Jobs didn’t allow his
kids to touch an iPad and he was
limiting the time when it came to when
it came to social media but that is
interesting because Steve Jobs said that
this class pretty much informed the
aesthetics of his first you know
Macintosh computer that he developed ten
years later so if you look at the
amazing aesthetics that Apple is about
today something has to do with that
glass that he took that he wasn’t even
supposed to visit things play out in
time we’re talking about durability
sustainability perseverance instead of
procrastination by the way I’m not
giving you no lazy people rain check
here what I’m saying is things play out
in time and now that we looked at the
humanities let’s look at companies for a
change you know I’m working for a great
international company by the name of BMW
we think of ourselves we create
fantastic cars and of course you know
the customer is key and we want to
provide the greatest product available
and at the same time if you’re an
international company you know you’re
doing business successful business
hopefully in a rather volatile global
environment you know you are constantly
making decisions for your shareholders
for your stockholders it is not about
the short short term however you know no
matter how relentless the urge is to
make quick decisions no matter how much
you’re pushed by your quarterly reports
what happens in the end
and what is as equally important as the
product is the image and the reputation
and that can only be built through time
do you have any idea what the shelf-life
of successful international companies
you mean the maximum average it’s 50
years you know when when when the stock
exchange opened when Wall Street opened
on on January 4th 1865 you know how many
companies are still being traded today
on Wall Street that were there back 150
years ago a single one and I want to
give you one more example out of those
hay days I don’t know how many people
know of ice trading or what you think of
when you think of ice trading the ice
trade business in the late 19th century
would as was at its peak
you had 90,000 people employed by ice
trading in in in the US alone it was a
multi billion business just by today’s
money but what happened with it you know
it was about getting ice from the
Northern Lakes as fast as possible for
the bars in New York and for the
hospitals in Minneapolis but then lo and
behold somebody invented the
refrigerator so all of a sudden all that
ice trading business went pretty much
out of work so there was an a journal
that everybody read in the business and
that was called the ice trade journal
you know what that I what that journal
was renamed in 1910 refrigerating world
so here we go
poof it’s gone what I’m saying is when
you’re in a company you’re working for a
big company you know you have to heed
the words of the German philosopher
makuu zur who said every future needs
the past and if you want to think ahead
you can and if you can think ahead you
are also able to adapt earlier even if a
Plex one like the fridge comes around so
before I delve into one more story that
I want to tell to tell you what are the
takeaways here you know we looked at the
humanities via Steve Jobs we were edging
our way in to looking at companies what
I’m saying is you have to realize that
you know business and humanities are not
mutually exclusive you know they can
benefit each other it’s not like
kirkegaard
made us believe the life of either/or
the life that we’re living as a life of
as well as
it just depends on what do we spend time
on and if you start studying the
humanities you’re bold it takes courage
you know you have to be passionate about
something you have to be interested in
something and that is what people do
when they study the humanities if you
made a real good decision about what it
is that you want to study why started
humanities if you will not be able to
you know probably be able to you know
live your lifestyle and afford a family
at the same time you’d be better off
probably studying law business or
economics but people are looking at soft
skills and people are looking at those
those people that are making a bold
decision in their lives and that starts
when you pick humanities as something
that you want to study empathy is a soft
skill that every business is looking for
an empathy is something that you get by
reading and working through a
thousand-page novels by reading through
long philosophical treatises and
following the protagonist of the novel
or trying to get what an author has to
say if you practice that you can pay
attention if you practice that you do
not get distracted the the deeper you
delve the more of an effort you make the
more you take your time the more the
inside will be and the end the insight
that you gain will be all the greater it
takes time it takes effort you know if
you lead a healthy life if you haven’t
lost anyone if you can afford your food
and if you have shelter you are
obligated to go to the fringes of the
outskirts of yourself and really work
and don’t worry energy will breed energy
and problems are solved through hard
work that is for humanities and business
thoughts you know come to a core
together I promise you one last example
and you know I would like to say close
your eyes and maybe if you do it that
would be great because I want you to
envision so close your eyes close your
eyes and envision mid 19th century
landscape southeastern France you have
little hand Hamlet’s your little
villages there’s this one guy delivering
the mail
he walks 20 miles a day on average every
day delivering the mail this man
actually existed he was fed in on
Shabbat the postman I mean he was 43
years old in April 1879 he chanced upon
a stone like a rock on his way
delivering the mail he picked it up he
looked at it and all of a sudden he saw
humans
he saw animals flora fauna all these
figurines and he loved that stone and he
brought it back home with him to the
village of what leaf he was having a
little vegetable garden at the river
bank of the galore that was running
through the little city that he was from
and since that day every day while he
was doing his 20 mile route delivering
the mail he picked up stones he picked
up pebbles he picked up shells he picked
up rocks that he thought were
interesting and he brought them back to
his vegetable garden and you know he
actually created build a little
wheelbarrow that would be would enable
him you know to carry even more rocks
and you know what his vegetable garden
looked like 33 years later he had
created the ideal Palace it’s like 80
feet long 50 feet wide almost 40 feet
high you know an entire building made
out of pebbles that he picked up on the
way delivering the mail and you know
that very first stone that he gathered
he put on an altar on the top floor
because he loved it so much and if you
looked at that temple now or if you look
at that ideal Palace which it became
known for you know it has imagery of
Egyptian tombs medieval castle Hindu
building a mosque all of these things
come together how did he know all these
things he wasn’t even an architect he
knew these things by delivering the mail
because photography had been invented a
few decades back and he was delivering
the mail and he saw these images also
magazines and that’s what informed his
palace and you know what the final
inscription said on his palace 93
thousand hours 10,000 days 33 years
there was the French poet Shabo Dalia
who said that minds can come
indicate fire centuries you know 200
years 500 years thousand years 2,000
years back like lighthouses along the
nightly Shore you are never alone in
your endeavors you can delve into books
you can read other people’s minds you
can read about their challenges you can
read about their problems you can read
about their problem-solving skills and
it turns out there might be the same
things that you’re contemplating today
we are all standing on the shoulders of
giants so just one more little thing if
you go to a tree if ever you know that
little village that has only 2,000
people living there about a hundred
thousand tourists coming to see the
postman shovels ideal palace you can buy
all these little tchotchkes like like
cups and miniature versions of the of
the of the ideal Palace and t-shirts and
whatnot but you can also walk the fields
because the fields outside of the little
village they’re still pretty much the
same that they were when chavala was
walking his roots and you can pick up a
stone like I did you can pick up little
stone take it back home with you put it
on your desk and contemplate it’s very
humbling to think what one single person
created out of that very stone and
sometimes that is probably a better idea
than looking at your screen
you know sometimes looking at that stone
or whatever it is that you choose makes
much more sense and it’s much more
beneficial both to your work and to your
spare time then you know what you do not
need all the time in the world for that
thank you very much [Applause]