A Quote by Kenny Smith

You can have your own thought process about things, but you still need to include and co-exist with other people. — © Kenny Smith
You can have your own thought process about things, but you still need to include and co-exist with other people.
Every once in a while someone says, 'You can't really learn anything, if you're really a writer then you wouldn't need to do it.' But I think what people need is the sense of not being alone. They go to MFA programs to be part of a community of people who care, and then you start caring about your friend who is trying to edit a magazine and your other friend who is stuck in the middle of her poem. There you have all kinds of things to worry about besides your own success.
One of the goals of analysis is you become your own analyst. You continue the process even if you're not in therapy, whether you continue the process by walking down the street thinking about things or whether you continue the process, as I do, by writing about them.
Without music and creativity, I'd need other forms of therapy. But for me, the life process is the process of healing yourself. 'Break the Night' is about offering hope to people, about breaking through the darkness.
I'm not trying to be mean. You [ Nicholas Kristof] have written about climate change. You're really concerned and you've thought a lot about the suffering of people in other countries. It doesn't seem like you have thought that deeply about the suffering of your fellow Americans. You don't have the solutions say as you do for global warming. And my question is: Isn't it always easier for the elites to identify with abstractions or poor people in other countries and kind of ignore their own country men. I have noticed this. Have you noticed that?
My writing has to excite people and depict or include their experiences. That's part of my process - to go out and interact with people. It's very much like an archival process. I understand that the Brothers Grimm would go out and get people talking so they could document folk tales that weren't being documented any other way. I try to offer a little bit of myself - some experience from my life that evokes stories in other people.
The only way that you can keep moving forward, finding other ways of expressing things about this increasingly complicated world that we live in, is by listening and observing not only to life around you but to the other people who are in the room. It's not about a sort of, you know, a sense that you have to be democratic about these things, it's a question of creativity that the process of making theatre is a collaborative process, and it is not in, it is not a question of, you know, I have no interest in paying lip service to it, for me it's absolutely fundamental.
I still feel about 22. I don't understand, actually. I mean, as I got older, I thought there would be things like, 'I need a house now', 'I need kids', 'I need a licence to drive', but I have never really had that happen. I guess that forms part of my appeal for the people who like the stuff I do: I'm not a real person - I'm a gypsy.
One of the things that my parents have taught me is never listen to other people's expectations. You should live your own life and live up to your own expectations, and those are the only things I really care about it.
There's still people that do it poorly... and people that do it very, very well. I think there's still an incredible spectrum. I guess there's something that's appealing in it, in that everyone on some level is a DJ. But people still go to clubs, and there's still... it is interesting - with everyone having an iPod now - when music is so personalised and things like Pandora and making your own playlists, there's something really powerful about a room full of people all dancing to the same song.
A lot of times when people are released or, unfortunately, get fired, they almost scramble for what it is they are going to do next. I think when you are no longer working under a big, corporate umbrella, you have to be your own brand, your own enterprise. That was my thought process before I left.
There's always that relief you feel when you're working on your own series that you can actually make it to your planned ending and that your audience will still be there to support you - and that your publisher will still exist.
Initially, I resisted going into acting. You want to have your own identity, and I thought about doing other things, but that didn't last very long.
With trans people, I just think you can't help the way you are born, though. You know, it's DNA, it's genetics. I'm just glad people can do things about their own happiness. I think this thought process that they're trying to wipe out women is a bit ridiculous - it's a minority of people.
That thought process that somehow other people have to be worse off in order for you to be better off does not work. People get on boats people jump fences to get away from that kind of thought process.
At the end of the day, these are issues that need to be discussed: femicides, among other things - immigrant rights, women's' rights, indigenous people's rights, animal rights, Mother Earth's rights. If we don't talk about these topics, then we have no place in democracy. It won't exist. Democracy isn't just voting; it's relegating your rights.
Your thoughts about your circumstances have you down. On the other hand, you can be in one of the biggest battles of your life, and still be filled with joy and peace and victory - if you simply learn how to choose the right thought. It’s time to think about what you’re thinking about.
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