TED Talk Tuesday #110 – Thoughts on humanity, fame, and love

Watching TED Talks is a popular pastime at CN&CO. We visit TED.com regularly to clear our heads, have a laugh or get inspired. TED Talks open our minds, spark new ways of thinking and can lead to some very interesting conversations. Each week we pick a favourite and publish it on a Tuesday, because we like how “TED Talk Tuesday” sounds. This week’s talk was posted by our Lethabo-Thabo. Here’s why she chose it.

I am a huge fan of Bollywood. I love the love stories, the dance numbers, and the insights into different cultures. Shah Rukh Khan (also known by many nicknames such as SRK and King Khan) is a prolific Bollywood actor so when I saw his TED Talk come up on my suggestions list, I knew I had to watch it. And wow. I’m so glad I did.

In this talk I received insights into one of Bollywood’s most successful actors (he had made 50 films and 200 songs by the time he was 40 years old). He is humble, kind, intelligent, funny, witty, charming, and filled with brilliant and hard-earned insights.

Besides what he says in the talk, the talk made me love SRK even more and I am filled with even more respect for what he has achieved. He lost his father when he was a teenager and by the time he was in his early twenties he had lost his mother, too. Besides coming from a difficult childhood has found massive success and managed to stay humble…and funny.

“The land I come from is the source of inexplicable, but very simple, spirituality. In its immense generosity India decided, somehow, that I, the Muslim son of a broke freedom fighter who accidentally ventured into the business of selling dreams, should become its ‘king of romance’…”

His love for his country and her people is inspiring: “…neither power nor poverty can make your life more magical or less torturous. I’ve learnt from the people of my country that the dignity of a life…actually resides in its ability for grace and compassion…”

I love how he talks about the past, the present, and the future of humanity and I love how he talks about the importance of love which is, he says, “perhaps the oldest and the simplest emotion known to mankind.”

Here are two more of many interesting and inspiring extracts from this brilliant talk.

“If there has been a momentous time for humanity to exist, it is now because the present you is brave, the present you is hopeful, the present you is innovative and resourceful and, of course, the present you is annoyingly indefinable.”

“The future you has to be a you that loves otherwise it will cease to flourish…”

He shares so many amazing, poetic nuggets of information it would be difficult to give them justice in this short intro, so I urge you to watch this talk… now: