I think it's better when you're natural, when you just do whatever you want, instead of doing classes where I see all these other people holding back because they've been trained with certain skills or techniques. I'm like, whatever.
I think Passenger is a bit of an ambiguous thing because in the past, it's been a band, or it's been just me, or a duo or whatever, but I kind of like that as well. I think it's whatever that I'm doing with whoever I'm doing it with!
There's this certain caliber of dancing I was striving for when I was younger, and it's very hard for me to go back and just do it for fun. But I take all other kinds of classes: I take jazz classes, modern classes, and I love doing that instead of going to the gym. The gym is not very much fun.
I don't want to just be an athlete. I kind of obsess on that sometimes. I don't want my son to be reading, oh, 'disappointment, just a scorer, selfish, didn't win enough, never quite the best' -- whatever. I want to be bigger than that. I want to shape my own destiny instead of just having him read about whatever on the back page.
Sports is like literature. People watch it and if it's beautiful and it's non-violent, whatever messages that you see, people can read into it and say, "Wow! You know what? Whatever they're doing over there, it's extraordinary, and maybe that culture is superior to ours in certain ways."
At the end of whatever we're doing, I always feel like I want to go back and start over again because now I have a better sense of what it is. I feel that with everything. Like, if you're doing like a long run of a play and you're doing it seven shows a week, at the end of it, I want to go back and start from the beginning.
I've been doing some acting, writing classes, and taking a holistic approach so I can actually be good at this craft. But ideally I'd eventually want to get my own show and make my 'Atlanta' or my 'Master of None' - whatever that would look like - in whatever media landscape that would best suit it.
You know how people are becoming sexually active way too early because they think it's going to be like it is in the movies. And people are not aware of their bodies in a certain way, because they are afraid to see themselves for who they are because they want to see themselves in someone else's shoes or whatever.
I've always wanted to take self-defense classes and I never did, for whatever reason. I don't know why. I don't know if it was fear or time, or whatever stops people from doing things that they want to do.
I think that my IQ level grew as a player. I think that I [run] the game a little bit better. I'm waiting for the game to come to me, and I'm picking and choosing my spots instead of just going out there and just doing whatever because I don't have to do that with this team?
My life is not a political campaign. I just write about what is on my mind. I just play whatever I feel like playing. Whatever is in my soul at the time is what I want to do. I have, thank god, enough people who are still interested in what I am doing so that I can go out and keep doing it.
I think online, like on YouTube and stuff, people could pretty much say whatever they want. They have no filter in their brain, because no one knows who they are. They're totally anonymous, so they could say whatever they want. But when they're in person with me, they wouldn't say those things, because I can actually see who they are.
In practice, some come to see easily, some with difficulty. But whatever the case, never mind. Difficult or easy, the Buddha said not to be heedless. Just that--don't be heedless. Why? Because life is not certain. Wherever we start to think that things are certain, uncertainty is lurking right there. Heedlessness is just holding things as certain. It is grasping at certainty where there is no certainty and looking for truth in things that are not true. Be careful! They are likely to bite you sometime in the future!
I think you just have to do you, whatever that is, and not feel like you have to be a certain way for other people to like you.
People are born in a certain place, and in a certain society. I don't mean to sound like a determinist, but to think we're entirely free to do whatever we want betrays a certain class perspective. For most people who have to work for a living, and work at jobs under conditions they may not like, it's just not simple when it comes to freedom.
Sometimes you just wanna go out, see your action movie, be done with it, come home. You know, and, like, you see 'The Matrix' or whatever, you see whatever film it is, and you're like, 'Oh cool,' whatever.
We're at a time now where there's a lot more "I'll do whatever it takes" attitude. I'm not going to say or do what you want me to say or do just because it might help me or be the politically correct thing to do to help my career. And that may have hurt me sometimes. I think about different collaborations that have been brought my way - it might have meant I'd get to be on TV to do certain things, but I've said, "No. It doesn't make sense. I'm not doing it." And other people might jump at the opportunity.