In support of Sting's stinging presentation at TED

The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference is an annual, global set of meetings with the slogan, "ideas worth spreading," in which various speakers address a wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture. It is a culturally enriching experience for all who speak and watch the conference.

David Brooks wrote an opinion article in the New York Times responding positively to the presentation that rock star singer Sting gave. He mentioned a barren period in the middle of his career when he was unable to write new songs. During this period, all he could recall was his childhood, about poverty and those unspeakably harsh nights when as a child he had to live on a street that led to a shipyard. Ironically, reminiscence over his difficult childhood years were what led him out of this unfruitful stage and revived his creativity.

Brooks was drawn to Sting's presentation because unlike most TED talks, which are all about the future, Sting's was about going back into the past and finding things that seemed bad at the time but turn out to be good in the long run. Brooks found Sting to be "circling back and coming forward." 

He said, "Sting's appearance at TED was a nice reminder of how important it is to ground future vision in historical consciousness. Some of the [other] TED speakers seem hopeful and creative, but painfully and maybe necessarily naiive. Sting's talk was a reminder to go forward with a backward glance, to go one layer down into self and then after self-confrontation, to leap forward out of self. History is filled with revivals, led by people who were reinvigorated for the future by a reckoning with the past."

It wasn't that Sting said all this during his presentation at TED. Brooks was able to draw meaning behind the very fact that Sting was sharing about his past experiences at a conference that was predominately centered around the future of the world. He looked beneath the surface, and shared what he got out of a rock star's presentation that we could all learn from.