You know, as you compose music, you're just off in your own world. You have no idea where reality is, so to have an idea of what people think is pretty hard.
It's pretty obvious there's a lot of corruption in the world right now. That takes many forms. There's economic, political, religious, social corruption. Just the manipulation that takes place with all the information that people are given, and even just the way the world is presented as this concrete block, this concrete idea that there's not really an alternative at this point in the world. You can't really go off and live your own life off in your own world.
I have a hard time working with other people with my own songs because I have a pretty complete idea of how it should be. It's usually just me multi-tracking which is better than coercing someone into doing my idea.
Ideas are nothing. They're irrelevant. If you think your idea is so important, you're doomed. The reality is if you don't like one idea, I've got 299 more. If I tell you my idea, and you can execute better against that idea than I can - great; I get to play a terrific game.
I feel like when you do Twitter, sometimes you just have an idea and you fire it off and don't really think too hard about the consequences of that. I think my reputation there is as a comedian and not someone to be taken seriously. But I like the idea of getting out false information and just muddying up the story and making it as confusing and, you know, schizophrenic as possible.
The idea that you can live off the grid and just do your own thing is a very American idea - that you should be able to do your own thing, if you want to, if you're willing to pay the price for it. I think the price has gotten higher and higher.
America is not so much a country as it is an idea, and that must be why so many people are drawn to it, the idea of it, the idea that you might be free of your past, free of the traditions that kept you in your own traditions - that is the idea of it: freedom from your very own self.
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.
I've known people who had fantastic ideas, but who couldn't get the idea off the ground because they approached everything weakly. They thought that their ideas would somehow take off by themselves, or that just coming up with an idea was enough. Let me tell you something - it's not enough. It will never be enough. You have to put the idea into action. If you don't have the motivation and the enthusiasm, your great idea will simply sit on top of your desk or inside your head and go nowhere.
Most people think it's all about the idea. It's not. EVERYONE has ideas. The hard part is doing the homework to know if the idea could work in an industry, then doing the preparation to be able to execute on the idea.
This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths – just because they can't think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my Avengers idea that I made up myself.
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life. Think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other thought. This is the way to success.
A social entrepreneur is somebody who knows how to make an idea reality, and one of the great ideas of our time is pluralism. Can people from different backgrounds live together in mutual peace and loyalty? And what we need is a generation of young social entrepreneurs who know how to make that great idea reality in an historical moment where religious extremists are, frankly, making their idea reality.
I think the very idea of character, of developing not just grit, but empathy and curiosity, emotional intelligence - you know, the things that I want my own daughters to develop - the idea that we're going to get there through rewards and punishments seems completely at odds with the idea of character itself.
You can learn to write. But what you write is something that depends on your taste and on your vision or whatever. Also, of course, the music I listened to inspired my idea of music. When people ask me "Where's your inspiration? Where does it come from?" I have no idea. Music is about music. Not about life and love.
Beyond all of this is something else, perfection; not just as an ideation, but as a living reality. Even though it may just be an idea for you, hold that idea in your mind.
I think that the idea of boundaries is being challenged everywhere. And I think our fascination with sci-fi is that it is a boundary-less world where we can kind of create the reality that we believe to be as opposed to the reality that is. It is about the beyond and the unknown in a different way than pretty much any type of storytelling is.