I think that place is a huge part of pretty much any musician's work, in how one responds to an environment, whether it be your actual surroundings or the more figurative place we're all living in.
I think [music and acting], they are connected, all that stuff. It's your emotional self, is pretty much how you do it, I think, from whatever place you do it, whether you're acting or you're singing.
Living in L.A., it's such a big huge place and there's so much of it. It's so much fun to be in Chinatown, or Downtown L.A. I was in Lynnwood, I was in Huntington Beach. I was in Venice. It's an incredible place.
I don't see much difference between living and working. I think living is a part of my work. People often say, 'How can you work so much?' I don't think about it as work. I think of it as a way to live.
There's something about the awareness of the limits that makes you tune in more to your surroundings and I've experienced a lot of pleasure or even joy in working with those alternatives and also it's made me so much more aware of just how much work we can make those sources of supply do for us, whether it's electricity or fossil fuels.
Pretty much any place that I haven't been is the next place I definitely I want to go.
If you're here for four more years or four more weeks, you're here right now. I think when you're somewhere, you ought to be there. It's not about how long you stay in a place, it's about what you do while you're there, and when you go, is that place any better for your having been there?
The catalyst that converts any physical location - any environment if you will - into a place, is the process of experiencing deeply. A place is a piece of the whole environment that has been claimed by feelings. Viewed simply as a life-support system, the earth is an environment. Viewed as a resource that sustains our humanity, the earth is a collection of places.
Theoretically, an open-plan office is a great format for a changeable work environment, a place where employees have a say over how they work and a place that can adapt to their needs and to the needs of the business.
See, I think our whole society is much too problem-solving oriented. It is far more interesting to participate in 'problem creation'... You know, ask yourself an interesting enough question and your attempt to find a tailor-made solution to that question will push you to a place where, pretty soon, you'll find yourself all by your lonesome - which I think is a more interesting place to be.
I've played sports pretty much my whole life, and that teaches you how to work with anyone, whether you like that person or you don't, and whether you get along with them or you don't. The circumstances don't matter. Team work is part of life.
The more that learn to read the less learn how to make a living. That's one thing about a little education. It spoils you for actual work. The more you know the more you think somebody owes you a living.
If you don't want to join a union, you're gonna have much more opportunity for individual expansion, individual expression of talent and achievement. But when you go to work at a place where salaries are predetermined not by your productivity and not by your talent and not by how much you work, but rather by what the union contract is, you're locked into that no matter how good a job you do. The only option you have is overtime to make more than what standard pay is.
When I'm with my parents, that's the place I can unplug. That's the place I can shut down and not worry about work or what's going on. I go home and hang out with them. I sleep more there than any place else ever.
Doing something that empowers people makes you realise how boring it would be to work for a place where the goal is just to make more money. It's much easier to get out of bed and look forward to 12 hours of work if you're making the world a better place.
The purpose of seasonal festivals is periodically to revive the topocosm. Gaster coined this word from the Greek - topo for place and cosmos for world order. Topocosm means "the world order of a particular place." The topocosm is the entire complex of any given locality conceived as a living organism, not just the human community but the total community - the plants, animals and soils of the place. The topocosm is not only the actual and present living community but also that continuous entity of which the present community is but the current manifestation.
It's very important to set your place in a concrete environment. I think Chekhov said that the important thing when you have a play or any kind of novel is to set the roots in a concrete place.