It has been a contented journey, as I made it without a filmi background tag, but at the same time, a lot remains to be done because there is much good music in me.
I have realised I do not have any back up, or filmi background, or any influential person who is making movies for me. I have to take this journey on my own, and be careful. For me, if I do something wrong, I am not going to get second chances.
I had no godfather/godmother/filmi family backing me, but I made it only because I just believed in my talent, and my audience reposed their faith in me. So, I always say that my godfather in B-town has been my audience. Without them, I would be nowhere.
Few of my classmates looked like me. While we shared similar aspirations and many good times, there's much to be said for making any challenging journey with people of the same cultural background.
My family is my biggest critic. Since they come from a non-filmi background, they give me an audience's point of view. They have been very supportive of me.
The last couple of years have been a good learning experience for me and a good journey. My first world title fight I fought Erik Morales and how much experience do you think you can get from that? A lot of people thought he would beat me because of experience. I've faced a lot of experienced fighters.
When I'm not doing readings, I just spend a lot of time alone and try to meditate. Going for walks in nature is also really good for me. It's a way to center myself without having people around, because my ability is less of an on-off switch. It's more like a radio volume dial, so I always have background music in my head.
It's a good community, country music, because we get the chance to sit down and... me and Tim McGraw spend a lot of time. Me and Kenny Chesney had the opportunity to spend a lot of time together. It's been a lot of great advice through the years.
I know how much my mom has impacted my journey and how much I wouldn't be where I am without my mom. As much as she says she's proud of me, I'm even more so proud of her because of what she's done and how she's been able to raise me and my sisters.
In some way, my fundamental feeling about music is that it's impossible to put a price tag on it. Human beings made music before they made a lot of other things, including tools.
The 'serial kisser' tag that has been thrust on to me is a lame stereotype. It irritates me. Yes, there is sexual content in my movies, and I have never been apologetic about doing bold scenes. But it's not fair to tag me this way because that can be very stifling.
I've been thinking a lot about the journey of my parents - just seeing the sacrifices they've made to allow me to do what I do. How much of a difference their sacrifices have made through the generations.
I can't listen to so much music at the same time. I think you really have to have a diet. You're just processing too much, there's no place to put it. If you go a long time without hearing music, then you hear music that nobody else hears.
I have a music-video background, and I feel like the responsibility of a music-video director is to do something that hasn't been done before in a really cool visual way. So much innovation has come in filmmaking through music videos.
Listening to a lot of guitar rock and roll music and feeling quite eccentric because everyone expected me to learn and develop like R&B. This kind of made me feel a little bit better, because I realized it was all the same, you know. There's no difference. It's just music.
There is so much that I have learnt from Shilpa. She also didn't come from any filmi background, so I took lessons from her mistakes.
Tourette's is just one big lifetime of tag, really. The world (or my brain---same thing) appoints me it, again and again. So I tag back. Can it do otherwise? If you've ever been it you know the answer.