I don’t ever do anything from a place of fear—which is an odd place for me to be in because I have anxiety—but I have to [step into places of discomfort] because that’s where growth happens. If you’re comfortable, you’re not growing.
If you go to a poetry reading, the aphoristic moments are usually where the audience lets out a collective “hmmm” or “ahhh”—almost before the poet has finished the sentence.
I think people want more unstressed time with their kids. I think so much of the time we are spending with our kids we are exhausted, and we have all this other stuff on our minds that’s mentally draining, physically draining. But the answer is not always more childcare.
There is a hyper self-awareness in all my work that acknowledges—teases itself, maybe—what it is addressing and from what entry point. I once modeled in a campaign for socks I designed for a skate label and on the box there was a small excerpt from one of my books.
I believe that we wield whimsy to gain the malleability to adjust to the harshness of the human condition, and this is especially true when you live in war torn countries.
When we act and what language we use to defend ourselves matters; on a craft level, this is useful to know because this very logic reveals character. What do you care about? And how does that show up in your life?