Year End: On what kept me going

I think in general there’s probably a large part of mainstream society that feels that there’s something slightly ridiculous and suspect about talking about quiet joys, but I certainly don’t feel that way. I think empathy is a powerful thing.

I also hate the fact that creative people are expected to be to be drug addicts or impossible or divas. It’s just a dumb kind of pretext about creativity.

There’s a strength in feeling like, “Yeah, we’re making something positive.” I’m not being cajoled. I’m refusing to be weighed down by this atmosphere. I don’t want to feel crushed…I want to really make something that feels positive and good and alive. I think there is something defiant about that. It’s to do with that kind of resilience that’s been there all the time.

You must also embrace the idea that if I truly value you, I’m also going to accept that you have something to offer even if it’s not a song. It could be a meal, it could be a prayer, it could be a poem, it could be a dance, it could just be a hello.

What does it mean to be an artist now? I mean, anyone who makes anything is an artist. Everyone is an artist…If you are in a position to make art, to wonder about whether or not you can call yourself an artist, then you’re already operating from such a fortunate place. It’s good to remember that.

And afterwards you might still feel equally as destroyed or equally starved or still just as angry—whatever you were feeling before. You might still feel the same exact way that you felt before you purged it, before you allowed yourself the acknowledgement and the time and the place in the universe to actually feel whatever it was you needed to feel without suppressing it or ignoring it. Even though you might feel the same way, at least you know that it’s real. Making a song is a way of not being alone in the way you feel.

For me, the fun part is just being at home and writing in my sweatpants. And then being like, “I wrote a poem and I like it.” There’s nothing that compares to that. Nothing. I feel like that’s something that sometimes gets lost in our culture, where everything’s about building a brand before you even have an established creative process. Please, don’t be a poet unless the number one thing you like to do is write poems. And read poems. You must love to write poems and read poems. Because, if you’re a poet, you’re going to have to have another job. And that job, whatever it is, is going to be your main job. And it’s going to be the thing that puts food on the table and pays your rent and makes sure you have healthcare occasionally. You know? Hopefully you’ll be writing all along, and doing things and creating. And that is going to bring joy into every part of your life.

Artists themselves can bring forth what it is they practice. I’d say our practice is the sun. It brings the sunlight into our life, and our practice can bring the sunlight into someone else’s life as well. And with this sunlight we can experience the pure, pristine, present moment of self. Artists who are working on themselves, who are either doing yoga, or meditation, or have their own way of going in and having introspective insights, are then able to take those moments and translate them into their art, whatever it happens to be.

It’s this idea that I’m sitting here, I’m ready to write, but I’m blocked, as if it’s a medical condition that you could see the doctor about. In reality, maybe it just means that you don’t have anything to say, so go away and come back, go away and read a book.

Sometimes you gotta throw all your old ideas out the window and do something new.

I think it’s important to remember that what you put out in the world is what brings work back to you, and brings responses to you, and brings opportunities to you. If you’re consistently putting something out in the world that isn’t what you really want to be doing, it’s going to take you on a path that isn’t right. It’s going to make you feel like you have somebody else’s life. I think the hardest thing, the biggest challenge, is being able to protect that. To protect yourself from those external ideas of what constitutes success.

I’m more willing to trust whatever that process is now. I had to learn that it’s OK not knowing in the beginning exactly what you are writing. In the past I would get frustrated and feel like I was beating on a door that wouldn’t open, but now I’m more like, “Well, let’s see where this goes.”

A big part of it is luck and a big part is also being delusional and trying to manifest this thing you want to happen.

Just being a human being is hard. You know, getting through life or getting through the day, sometimes, is hard. So finding a space where you can really be with your self-expression, that story is vital. Representation is vital. It’s so important that there is space for people of all colors and sexual preferences, that your creativity isn’t limited because of who you are as a human or who you choose to be. We should all be able to have our own space.

There’s no final, perfect state you ultimately reach—it’s all your own path.