I think we're living, in terms of media, in a very democratic age, but I think that we still look at everything through the lens of 'Vogue' and through our own point of view.
I think our brains does have a tendency to be true to its own ideas and statements. Everything we do and everything we think about is a belief. Until we get to the point where we look beyond our own ego-self, and to some degree beyond our own mind, we are always going to make assumptions and have beliefs to make our brains feel more comfortable. And if we can get to a point where we embrace that uncertainty and doubt, and be willing to learn from that and to explore that, I think that that could be a very positive experience.
We have resorted to every means to win back the position that Adam lost. We have tried through education, through philosophy, through religion, through governments to throw off our yoke of depravity and sin. All our knowledge, all our inventions, all our developments and ambitious plans move us ahead only a very little before we drop back again to the point from which we started. For we are still making the same mistake that Adam made - - we are still trying to be king in our own right, and with our own power, instead of obeying God's law.
I think I am a religious person just by nature. I think I sort of view everything through the lens of some inner undying thing in people that drives them to act as they do or to feel ashamed of not acting in some other way.
I'm in regular contact with people who are still in the military-friends, family, people I served with, men and women I taught at West Point-and I look at every military issue through that lens. What they say or think weighs heavily on my mind.
I think one of the greatest joys I have now in my career and in my profession is to be playing at an age where I can appreciate it more than I used to... It's a whole different lens you look through the older you get.
The lens through which I view the media world is pretty simple: If you are in the business of sucking up attention, then you are in the media business.
Through the years, through my own conversations, through my own weird obsessions, I think I have developed some very deep politics of political knowledge - and I think I have huge blind spots, too - which I have tried to build not necessarily through traditional interviews so much as it is conversations and a lot of research and reading.
If you look at yourself and life through the lens of your ego, you'll feel isolated, ganged up on, alone, dfferent, and not part of the crowd. If you look through the lens of Spirit, knowing we're all one, you'll always feel safe, secure, ad loved.
I've been through some very dark times in my life and I've been through those very dark times that's affected my world view, the lens that I see people through, so I can relate to that.
I think today that's a very big problem because of the world we live in and the social media and everything... everybody is obsessed with their own identity, but seen through other people.
I'm very open in terms of sharing bits about my life, but I think it's very easy to get a distorted sense of who anyone is through social media.
I think we have to go through everything we go through in our life, and I believe my purpose in life was to teach self-reliance. So I had the experience of relying on myself very early in life in order to have that knowing, because otherwise I would've just read about it. I think of it now as a great advantage that I had. It certainly taught me to rely upon myself at a very young age. And that's what I've been teaching since I was a little boy.
I think we all get our own bag of hammers. We all get our own Parkinson's. We all have our own thing. I think that we'll look at it through the filter of that experience, and we'll say, "Yeah, I need to laugh at my stuff, too."
When a person looks through a colored lens, everything seems to be that color. If the lens is tinted yellow or blue, everything seems yellow or blue. A person who looks at life through the lens of gratitude will always find things to be grateful for.
I'm very confident in my point of view. 'Cause I think that that's all you can really have. I'm never really going to know what anybody else is going through, so it's just kind of your job to be expressive with your point of view.
I think it's very disheartening and undermining to focus on nostalgia or youthful sentimentality as the lens through which you view art and culture, because then you feel like everything good already happened. I really just try to be in the present with music and just find the things that are invigorating and make me feel happy to be alive right now.