“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future; live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
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Do you like sipping tea? Would you like to get to know other Bean East students? Do you enjoy friendly conversation on provocative topics? Then let’s chat over cups of delicious tea, watch TED talks, and discuss important ideas. Click the images above to see the meeting time and to browse the TED archives.
Fall Schedule
September 30: Hetain Patel, “Who Am I? Think Again”
How do we decide who we are? Hetain Patel’s surprising performance plays with identity, language and accent — and challenges you to think deeper than surface appearances. A delightful meditation on self, with performer Yuyu Rau, and inspired by Bruce Lee.
October 7: Julian Baggini, “Is There a Real You?”
What makes you, you? Is it how you think of yourself, how others think of you, or something else entirely? In this talk, Julian Baggini draws from philosophy and neuroscience to give a surprising answer.
October 14: Sherry Turkel, “Connected, But Alone?”
As we expect more from technology, do we expect less from each other? Sherry Turkle studies how our devices and online personas are redefining human connection and communication — and asks us to think deeply about the new kinds of connection we want to have.
October 21: Daniel Golman, “Why Aren’t We More Compassionate?”
Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, asks why we aren’t more compassionate more of the time.
October 28: Richard Wilkinson, “How Economic Equality Harms Societies”
We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.
November 4: JR, “One Year of Turning the World Inside Out”
Street artist JR made a wish in 2011: Join me in a worldwide photo project to show the world its true face. Now, a year after his TED Prize wish, he shows how giant posters of human faces, pasted in public, are connecting communities, making change, and turning the world inside out.
November 11: Mark Bittman, “What’s Wrong With What We Eat”
In this fiery and funny talk, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman weighs in on what’s wrong with the way we eat now (too much meat, too few plants; too much fast food, too little home cooking), and why it’s putting the entire planet at risk.
November 18: Pam Warhurst, “How We Can Eat Our Landscapes”
What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With energy and humor, Pam Warhurst tells at the TEDSalon the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable gardens, and to change the narrative of food in their community.
December 2: Katherine Fulton, “You Are the Future of Philanthropy”
In this uplifting talk, Katherine Fulton sketches the new future of philanthropy — one where collaboration and innovation allow regular people to do big things, even when money is scarce. Giving five practical examples of crowd-driven philanthropy, she calls for a new generation of citizen leaders.
December 9: Jane McGonigal, “Gaming Can Make a Better World”
Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how.
