I wasn't trying to be rich or famous; I was trying to figure out what is this thing in me that won't let me sleep that makes me restless and makes me keep pushing. I was trying to discover who I was.
I'm constantly trying to work on the person that I am and work on my shortcomings, and I guess I want people to know that it's ok to be a work in progress, as long as you keep trying to figure it out. But that search and that discovery is what makes life kind of rich, and it's what makes life rich... period.
Reading makes me want to write my own books, and just trying to understand what I see in the world around me makes me want to figure things out.
I love shooting, when the character is interesting and the script is interesting, but the research beforehand is really fun. The whole process makes me anxious and restless, and I have trouble sleeping, just trying to figure out the character.
People ask me all the time, "What are your influences? Are you trying to do Beckett?" It's like, "No, I'm trying to do me." Whatever that is. I don't know what that is, but that's the basis. I'm trying to be true and I'm trying to be honest.
Sometimes things fall in your lap and sometimes you really carve them out. I've found that songs I really like can happen both ways. I've also been trying to learn when to step away and take a break and when to keep pushing through. For me it's a delicate balance of staying inspired and staying consistent, and I'm still trying to figure it out.
The last thing I'm trying to do is trying to look to go out into a fight. Ask anybody who knows me, I'm not the first guy to go around and just start pushing people.
Playing with decks, for me, has always been about trying new things. I make it a point to keep trying different things, keep pushing it a little bit at a time.
I don't like that putdown: that when you're trying to achieve, you're trying to be white. That makes me mad.
Boxing kept me out of the streets, by giving me something to do. And it gave me a father figure in the coach that was there for me. I just reiterated what my mother was trying to teach me about focusing and getting my life together.
I can remember trying to coach, trying to figure out schemes, and it just wasn't coming to me.
I know teams are gameplanning against me, trying to not let me shoot pull-ups, basically trying to take me out of the game as much as they can.
So don't blame me for the problems. You can't fault me for it. You can't blame me. You want to blame me but I'm just trying to express what is going on, and trying to keep America open to it.
My political mission is as acute as ever. For me, in addition to kind of looking at the world and trying to engage in my society politically, having the kid around sort of makes me check in with myself. I think you're all busy trying to fix the world, but what about yourself?
When I first came to college, it was a time that I was trying to figure out, 'Who am I? What makes me special?' and I started to find most of my value in the fact that I was thin.
I always think about the books I'm doing in pretty much the same way. I'm simply trying to write that particular novel as well as that particular novel can be written. I want to listen to what it is telling me, trying to figure out what it wants to do as much as what I want to do with it. There's a negotiation that's constant and ongoing between me and the material I'm working with, because I'm trying to listen to it.
On top of trying to find my way in this business and losing my mother and trying to figure out what family meant to me and everything - 2016, there was a lot of anger from me and a lot of anger all around. I think the hardest part was to really realize that all these things, it's worth it.