I’m curious about your experience of time. Do you feel like life is moving really quickly? Is your music one way to sort of turn it over and reflect on it?
WILLOW SMITH: I mean, time for me, I can make it go slow or fast, however I please, and that’s how I know it doesn’t exist.
JADEN SMITH: It’s proven that how time moves for you depends on where you are in the universe. It’s relative to beings and other places. But on the level of being here on earth, if you are aware in a moment, one second can last a year. And if you are unaware, your whole childhood, your whole life can pass by in six seconds. But it’s also such a thing that you can get lost in.
How have you gotten better?
WILLOW SMITH: Caring less what everybody else thinks, but also caring less and less about what your own mind thinks, because what your own mind thinks, sometimes, is the thing that makes you sad.
JADEN SMITH: Exactly. Because your mind has a duality to it. So when one thought goes into your mind, it’s not just one thought, it has to bounce off both hemispheres of the brain. When you’re thinking about something happy, you’re thinking about something sad. When you think about an apple, you also think about the opposite of an apple. It’s a tool for understanding mathematics and things with two separate realities. But for creativity: That comes from a place of oneness. That’s not a duality consciousness. And you can’t listen to your mind in those times — it’ll tell you what you think and also what other people think.
WILLOW SMITH: And then you think about what you think, which is very dangerous.
Do you think of your new music as a continuation of your past work?
JADEN SMITH: That’s another thing: What’s your job, what’s your career? Nah, I am. I’m going to imprint myself on everything in this world.
What are the things worth having?
WILLOW SMITH: A canvas. Paint. A microphone.
JADEN SMITH: Anything that you can shock somebody with. The only way to change something is to shock it. If you want your muscles to grow, you have to shock them. If you want society to change, you have to shock them.
WILLOW SMITH: That’s what art is, shocking people. Sometimes shocking yourself.
So is the hardest education the unlearning of things?*
WILLOW SMITH: Yes, basically, but the crazy thing is it doesn’t have to be like that.
JADEN SMITH: Here’s the deal: School is not authentic because it ends. It’s not true, it’s not real. Our learning will never end. The school that we go to every single morning, we will continue to go to.
WILLOW SMITH: Forever, ‘til the day that we’re in our bed.
JADEN SMITH: Kids who go to normal school are so teenagery, so angsty.
WILLOW SMITH: They never want to do anything, they’re so tired.
WILLOW SMITH: I went to school for one year. It was the best experience but the worst experience. The best experience because I was, like, “Oh, now I know why kids are so depressed.” But it was the worst experience because I was depressed.
only bits and pieces 'cause the interview was quite long.
but somebody very cool and special to me, sent me this interview today, and i can't remember the last time i felt so lifted.
haven't been feeling too okay and i've been finding myself in bad spaces more often.
and he/this made such a difference.
thank you.