Rick Rubin on Creativity, Service, and Playing Your Own Hand

I've never had any psychedelic experiences from drugs I've had them from hot and cold I've had them from breath work I've had them through different spiritual experiences the creative act itself is in its way its own psychedelic experience each of us is here to play our part not somebody else's part the key is learning to play your own hand the hand that you're dealt is the only hand you can play we're all unique single voices our purpose here is to share the way we see it right or wrong it's not about being right this is what I see what do you see what's also odd to me is the idea that anyone would be arrogant enough to think they know what's best for someone else the commercial that you produced for Kennedy for the Super Bowl you had to do that as far as I understand it in a hurt it gets done in 36 hours there's all this legal stuff going on the network is trying not to let it on a lot of stuff happened the same forces now that are trying to ban whatever version of free speech is happening now are the same people who 40 years ago wanted to ban hip-hop if you make something and everybody likes it chances are you haven't gone far enough the best work divides the audience the best work people love it and people hate [Music] it it's a pleasure to be here with you Rick thank you very much same yeah I've been really enjoying diving into your book the creative act obviously I've been a passive fan of your creativity for like most people for most of my life listening to the incredible music that you've had your hand in and playing a part in and uh but beautiful to see you distill the act of this into this book and of course we also got to talk about the uh the commercial you just produced for the Super Bowl for a mutual friend Robert F Kennedy Jr um so so much to get into today but uh I'm just really excited to sit down with you great let's do it let's do it so in going through this I think one of the ways that I felt like might allow us to access some of the wisdom you have is to go to the personal go to the aspects of the creative act that I know in myself and then allow you to offer your expertise and Reflections on some of that as well so in reading this I find that one of the challenges that I have and just to give you a little background and for any new listeners tuning in I've been on the plant medicine and psychedelic medicine path since I was 18 so almost 25 years and it's allowed me access to a greater level of creativity from the capital c creativity of capital S source and it's been a great blessing it's offered a a bridge to different ideas helped me synthesize ideas internally and also the books that I've read and the teachers I've studied from and the philosophies and what I find is and you talk about this is you you talk about the seeds and these are these ideas and these ideas that start to come to you from the field and kind of come from yourself but somewhere beyond yourself but I find myself in a sea of seeds and then I want to do them all I want to do I want to grow and water and nurture all the seeds and sometimes I do and then I end up with the whole garden of seeds and I don't have the energy or the water or the attention of my time like the sun that peers down to actually nurture the seeds so I end up getting little tiny little tiny baby saplings that don't have enough energy or attention so what would you do you know and what would you advise for myself or anybody like myself that feels like man I got all these ideas but the discretion about which one to go with becomes a real challenge I find that I I'm in a similar boat similar condition that that you're describing I I come up with many ideas I water many seeds and typically what happens is something else takes over it's not so much about me deciding um they kind of take on a life of their own and some of them find their way into the world and get pulled forward and other ones you can decide you want to focus on and nothing happens you know you can just Hammer them and they nothing happens so um I would say giving giving up some of the feeling of control and looking at them all and seeing some of them are going to have more life than others some of them are going to or you also in your life when you're paying attention what's going on around you you'll get Clues related to some of them more than others you'll get pieces of the puzzle showing up in your life and um so I I feel like it has less to do with us and more just the more the more we pay attention it becomes clear how it wants to be yeah that's that's really beautiful advice it reminds me of one particular instance of a an animated film that I that I created and I have lots of ideas for these short animated films and things and in this example that you said we were going to create a film called Gathering of the tribe it's a story told by Charles eisenstein and we were getting an animator and I was just showing the idea to uh the musician John Hopkins who's one of the great ambient composers you're probably familiar with his work uh also has his own EDM kind of side uh side to what he does and he just listened to it he just saw what we had going in the story and he goes I want to score it and I go you want to score it I mean amazing and it it just brought it over the line into this next level and it became you know one of the gems like one of these things that I'm really proud of and it was really the universe just conspiring he happened to be staying at my house you know he happened to see it it wasn't my effort to make it happen like you were saying I didn't decide but there was a almost the con the you know the conspiracy of the of the cosmos working through to help bring this to fruition yeah it it just happened to me with the um the website that I sent you the beta version of it was an idea that started about seven years ago and seven years ago there were all these ideas I made all these notes about it and for whatever reason it just never came into existence because there was always other stuff going on and for whatever reason not by my decision the universe conspired for it to come together and happen now and it's happening and it's cool and it may have never happened you know yeah I I don't think I would have pushed it to happen because there are so many other um fledgling possible projects right that um I don't I don't think we can decide I think we can just really pay attention and I want to double click on the you know on that website I don't know if you want me to share the name of it or not you might want to keep that all private but uh yeah Tetra gamon it was a beautiful compilation of such a vast array of art from physical tangible to visual to sound to poetry I mean what a cool [ __ ] thing to be a part of especially you know with with who you are and and your eye and your ability to help uh collate and collect all of these different pieces of art I mean phenomenal I can't wait until this releases I was already gorging in the short amount of time that I had on uh on the pieces that were there so again a beautiful a beautiful thing that I hope everybody gets to enjoy and I wanted to just go go to one one danger that I could see in that and just and ask your opinion about that one danger I could see is I've known some people who have left a little too much up to the universe ah well if I'm meant to be a if I'm meant to be a you know a rock star musician or whatever it'll just happen and I'm like no bro you got to play shows like you got a book that you got book that grimy little dive bar and you got to get in there and you got to play your music you know you got to get sit your butt in the studio and put out a track you know like there's this combination of listening and then like the effort and the will absolutely the work ethic is a a necessary piece that without it nothing happens and I'm when I say waiting for signs from the universe I'm not saying waiting for signs and doing nothing I'm saying we're always working we're always showing up I'm saying less deciding we know what to do it's not about that that I've made a decision and I'm bringing it to life it's not that it's a collaboration and I'm paying attention seeing what's happening around me and things come up and it's time for them and we get to support them in their process M yeah I saw you interviewed Steven pressfield who's a you know a mutual friend and I he's been such an inspiration for me um one of the things that he talks about is that I think it's 9:00 a. I could have the exact time wrong but at 9:00 a.m. he sits his ass down in his seat and he is going to write he's going to show up like a professional and I think I think it was Neil Gaiman who maybe said something similar where he goes to the Garden to write but you sit down at a certain point maybe it's a 100 words that comes out maybe it's 5,000 words that comes out but e every single day he's going to sit down and show up and then whatever moves through them is going to happen and I think that kind of structure is something that's really incredible incredibly viable and separates really the pro from the amateur yeah having a practice of working on whatever it is that you're working on and could be many different things I'm I'm always working on a lot of things there's never enough time to do all the things that I want to do I hear you um but I don't I don't get to decide that you know I I let that happen on a different plane I I'd love to ask you what what were you like pre-plant medicine so pre-plant so I was 18 when I first had my plant medicine Journey so just out of high school very focused on girls in basketball but also with the mind to you know a deeper philosophical understanding but the philosophical understanding led me into a more materialist reductionist virtually atheist though mildly agnostic I actually reread it's interesting you asked me I reread a journal from actually my pre-plant medicine days and what was really interesting is I got basically suckered into a church ski trip when I moved to moved to Austin Texas so I moved to Austin Texas at 14 wasn't around a lot of religion didn't experience it very much in California where I moved from and I I went to this church ski trip I had fun skiing but then they were the pastor was preaching all of these things so I wrote down the 10 reasons why I disagreed with what the tenants of of Christianity that were being taught and I had 10 serious objections and it was funny seeing my 16-year-old mind go with that and then I look at and then I have another section this a shorter section and it's reasons why I believe and there was some like larger scale reasons but the one that was really funny to me is for whatever reason I took a particular interest in Rasputin and the story of Rasputin and I believed that Rasputin had legitimate healing powers so one of the reasons why I believed in God was I was like well but what about Rasputin how did he get those Powers so it was I was always thinking about these things but I think the directed attention of my focus was largely on other kind of regular lifestyle issues and then of course with that plant medicine journey I had a direct sematic nosis of the Divine that moves in me as me through me the ability of The Unborn and undying to be felt and known and that really catapulted me into a different trajectory where I still cared about girls in basketball don't get me wrong but there was another element that really uh kind of picked up momentum do you feel like how do you not um ever done plant medicine you would still have gotten to where you are now no chance no chance I don't think I think that is for whatever reason I would I would be in some version of who I am but without knowing anything like not being able to feel it like feel the this the energy of source and feel the energy actually moving through me I don't think I would have ever believed it offhand so I think I would have been Limited in my exploration of the deeper esoteric Concepts inside of sides of the world and um maybe I would have found it a different way I could have found it through a profound breath work or meditation practice or there's many ways that you can find it plant medicine isn't the only way but it's been my way so it's hard to imagine getting anywhere close to where I am without a way and you know that just happened to be the way um for me and uh yeah so it's it's hard to even imagine what uh what Aubrey would be like without those uh those great plant teachers cool how about for yourself have you had you know have you had any experiences with the uh I imagine I imagine the answer to that would be yes and but uh any that you're willing to share or talk about that were profound I tell you surpris surprisingly I've um I've never ha --- ess instead of following their own path to lead to your own success I see that in in music all the time I've you know I've had some friends who I I don't have that I don't have the ear that you do obviously and I don't I don't know but we all have an ear we all have a sense of something that's really special and I've heard their early music you know like just some of the tracks that they just got in there and they just ripped it it was their heart it was poetry it wasn't just music it was poetry because it came from their soul and then they got they got kind of in the machine and then the machine started tweaking this thing and tweaking that thing and changing the lyrics a little bit changing the sound a little bit and honestly they'll send me the tracks and they'll be excited about it because everybody's telling them it's good and I'm like that's cool but I miss your old stuff you know like I miss that raw stuff the real stuff that that to me just that that really sings and like and captures my soul yeah I understand and and I will say I don't feel like I have a better ear than you or anyone else it's not about that it it really is more of like you say you can tune into you can hear something that everyone says is better than it used to be and you can say it was better before I missed the way it was before that's my job that's all I do yes like or I could say you know what it's not good enough right let's go back and work harder and try to figure it out and let's think of other things other directions we can go that might lead to something good without any uh expectation that it will you know I I I never know it's always like everything's an experiment and then you're experimenting you're experimenting you're experimenting and at some point you step back and like whoa that thing is good you know that one is better than all the other one all the other experiments up until now and that's that's all it is do you feel like a like a little click that happens or something in the experimentation process like there's this just this moment where you know you know I I find that I'll find I find something maybe it'll be a line of a poem maybe it'll be the start of a of a chapter maybe it'll be uh some little thing and I'll feel it or even a brand name for a company and I'll feel it and then it'll just be like it'll there's just this subtle little click like the like some kind of Nod from there it is yeah yeah and then and then from there it's just great feeling it's a great it's the best feeling it's such a good feeling you know you feel you feel almost touched by you touched you're Touched by an Angel like literally in that yes in that moment and then I then from there I suppose it's just doubling down and and then showing up like a professional and really nurturing that seed once you feel that once you feel that moment that happens and also sometimes we can have a moment like that and then the project will take a wild turn in a different direction and it's okay and the New Direction ends up being even better than the that first revelation where you feel like there it is yeah um still being um respectful that it may change its mind essentially and find a new way or sometimes you work for you know you think you you have it and then you work for it for a month or two months three months longer trying to take this little moment that was so special and amplify it or place it in the right position or um find a way to build around it and you realize after months of working on it actually it was the best version of it was in that moment when I first liked it and that's the real version you know it could be like you do a little drawing a little sketch a doodle and then you think ah this would make the greatest painting and then you spend a long time working on the painting and you look at the painting and you look at the doodle It's like the doodle is really better than the painting so being able to ex it's something in the music business that you hear often was the demos were better than the album it's when you work past something and because you're putting work into it you there's some part of you that believes you're making it better your intention is to make it better but you don't go back and check or many many don't go back and check is is it in fact better is the the fact that I put so much more time and effort into it making it better or was that first rough draft actually the best version you also can't know that until you go past it yeah do you know what I'm saying it's like if you you do the you do the first rough version you love it if you don't continue to see what it could become you may be stopping you know at 1 when it has the potential to get to 10 but we can't know that in advance no no way to know that mhm it seems that it's important to be aware too of the psychological forces or cosmological forces that may be acting against you in this process right this this idea of perfectionism like I'm going to keep working on it making it better when actually because I referenced Stephen pressfield I'll use his terminology when actually resistance is coming in there and and not wanting you to release your art in some way so it just has you perpetually tinkering with it and actually making it making it worse until actually you won't produce it at all so I think being aware of those those elements that work in the psyche I didn't get to listen to your conversation with pressfield um what are your what are your thoughts on his take of this force of resistance I'm sure you've seen it and felt it yourself in your own way no absolutely absolutely I think he's exactly accurate we we come at it I feel like we're coming at it from two different sides but we're talking about the same thing he spends a lot of time talking about this force of resistance and I talk about this Infinite Source that's available to us at all times so we're both are true MH you know both are true we're just focusing on different aspects of the issue right do you have do you have some stories that you could share um or that of people who've really had you know some kind of spark and then had their own battle with battle with resistance and hopefully made it through the other side or potentially a cautionary tale of the the wrong side as you've worked with different artists I'm sure you've seen all gamut of people fighting and wrestling with themsel in this process yeah there the the two that come to mind the first one comes to mind is the comedian Andrew Dice Clay who I used to work with and I produced all of his his albums um I think we did Five albums and he was very popular with his audience he was the biggest comedian in the world at that time and there the people who were not fans of his didn't understand what he was doing and didn't like what he was doing and he was vilified outside of his audience so he could he sold out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row at a time when comedians didn't do that people are going crazy screaming chanting on his behalf you know loving him like the Beatles but then you'd read something in the newspaper that would say he's a horrible person or people never even interviewed him they don't know him um and I saw him the reason he became a comedian was because he wanted to make people happy and be liked it's part of the I think every comedian at some level is doing it to express themselves with the hopes of people accepting them so Andrew had this huge acceptance from his audience but the outside mainstream World rejected him and it got to him and he decided to change his act to try to appease the people who didn't understand him and it was a a it felt it was heartbreaking to watch because he was so loved right but he was really struggling because he was is he was hoping to please people um that's the first one that comes to mind the other thing that comes to mind is bands who get very successful and end up breaking up but the the the the reasons for the breakup are always so much smaller than the power of the band together and it's just heartbreaking to watch whether it be System of a Down or Rage Against the Machine or who whoever they are they have so much power as a unit and the pieces of the unit all together create this amazing thing but then some something small or a difference of opinion or a difference of ideas ends up breaking it up yeah and you know to take pressfield's angle of that it would there's both ways of see it one could be they lose contact with that higher source that Drew them forward and Drew them together that that impulse for allurement and intimacy that would draw them together which is the positive side so they lost contact with that so it was the absence of the draw and in the listening to the to Spirit or you could say also on the inverse and they're not mutually exclusive both can be true that that voice of resistance The Whisper Of The Deceiver is another word that I'll call it the Whisper Of The Deceiver got into their ear and just started whispering oh this person is you know you you could be more famous if you did it alone or you don't need your band or you just this Whisper of that devil on your shoulder that that kind of can break something beautiful up and so both aspects one continuing to connect to that higher authority and also being mindful to push aside the voice of the deceiver that might whisper into your ear let's go into your creative process because the commercial and we'll just do something really recent because it this just came out and is one of the reasons why we're talking right now the commercial that you produced for Kennedy for the Super Bowl keny Kenedy Kenedy Kennedy do you want a man forid who SE through and through a man who's old enough to know and young enough to do well it's up to you it's up to it's stct up to you American value 2024 is responsible for the content of this advertis you had to do that as far as I understand it in a hurry like this was not something that you had you know you had six months to to mle over and work on you had an unbelievable deadline funny story yeah tell me tell me it's a funny story I'll tell you the story I'll tell you the long version of the story starting from the beginning even though it was it's a crazy deadline and it happened very quickly the long version of the story is I do a podcast also called tetr griton and when I started I started the podcast less than 12 months ago and a friend of mine Rich R said you know at the beginning of the podcast you're going to talk to the audience and explain who the guest is and then there'll be ads and you're going to read the ads and I said I don't think I'm going to do any of those things he's like no but everyone's going to expect that you have to do that I said I I don't really feel comfortable doing that I I feel like there's going to be a different way like I just I'm doing this because I want to do it my way I don't I don't even know what my way is yet but I know I don't want to do those things so the idea of solving the problem of commercials when I don't want to read an ad for a commercial and I started trying a bunch of different things and trying experiments and started making these commercials that sound like they're from another time and they have they're just different than all the other commercials you get to hear and we were seeing that on the podcast episodes the most viewed part of the podcast were the commercials people love the commercials now when I listen the podcast I almost always skip commercials the fact that anyone would skip to a commercial really was a revelation it it wasn't intended to do that wasn't the intention the intention was I was trying to solve a problem I don't want to read ads what can I do that's interesting and not be a negative and it turned into a positive so I just recently had that experience and what's cool about those commercials is they remind you of another time they remind you of childhood they remind you of what uh you know what AM radio might sounded like when you were a kid um very different than anything um that you can experience today in in media so I had that experience and then I get a call this was last week S I believe it was Saturday of last week I get a call from a friend who said um do you have any ideas now I don't watch football so I have no idea when super and Saturday is the Saturday you're talking about is eight days from the Super Bowl eight days from the Super Bowl yeah and I get a call saying um from a friend who said we made this commercial uh for Bobby Kennedy and it got rejected and now we we have to come up with something else do you have any ideas and I thought okay it's fun helping a friend solve a problem I I like to do that that's fun so I started thinking abo --- led me we all like number two best and then we talk about the idea of number one which is the one that we ended up going with is probably the most radical in the context of the Super Bowl the Super Bowl is the um highest profile most Cutting Edge CGI uh AI Superstar ads so of the things we can make this one is is the most foreign compared to those it'll the goal was for people to say almost feel like there's something wrong when it comes on like what's this doesn't belong you know this is a mistake right um so my Hope was for people to you know WTF that was my that what I was hoping for yeah and um so if gets done it gets done in 36 hours there's all this legal stuff going on the network is trying not to let it on a lot of stuff happened um but then it came out and remarkably it really seemed to touch PE like have impact with people in a way that you can never plan or guess but it it I I actually saw people on Twitter saying exactly what I said I hope someone would say this a lot of people said that yeah so it was a it was like uh it really came together and and it's not um for me it wasn't a political thing at all um I don't even know what what Bobby's um platform is I have no idea it was a creative problem to help a friend solve a creative problem and it was a fun project on a large scale so that's how it happened and and uh it's so cool that it had the impact that it did it's it's again shocking ands it's still having an impact I mean I think I got some some statistics 123 million saw it in the game or something like that and then there been another 77 million or something that have seen it since so it's still Rippling and and it really evoked this you know it was archival footage but it evoked this sense of Nostalgia of you know for many people the last time you know who at least people who've lived that long the last time they really remembered having like genuine faith in their government in the in the way that happened during JFK and I think again I reference Charles eisenstein once again but there was a big break that happened I think in the American psyche when he was assassinated you know it was like something is something is not quite right here and I don't think that's been quite put back together together yet so you know the the way that it was done it's another part of the the ad has no the commercial has no political content other than Kennedy for president it doesn't it doesn't take a position it's not an attack ad if you watch TV at all every ad you see is just this attacking angry um and it feels like the whole world has become a version of an attack ad yeah so the feeling of something upbeat that makes you feel good and reminds you of a time that you were less stressed out seemed like a good thing and it's it's part of why the the commercials on tetr gamitin have the feeling that they do and it's part of why the website that you got to check out part of the feeling of that and I'm realizing the reason it happened now instead to seven years ago so many of the things that I used to follow in the past so many things about art things about um creativity interesting interesting things and I grew up watching PBS and interesting things and all these places all of a sudden now none of those places do that anymore they're all Angry political sites every one of them you know an art an art column is an angry political art column when used to be about the Wonders and beauty of art so the the purpose of the website is it's not political it doesn't take any sides it's it's a relief from what feels like this bombardment of anger unhappiness um it just it's just unpleasantness that's feels like it's making us all crazy yeah it's definitely making us sicker and sicker and I think there's a place to channel that anger into art and I think like if you think about some of the great you know legendary hip-hop groups like NWA they channeled a bunch of anger into their art but they wrapped it in art and it became iconic and it became like legendary but there's different when you wrap it in the bubble of Art and your creativity and I think we've lost that ability to put this emotion where it really belongs which is into your artistic expression and then that's a different it's a different thing when when it comes across as art you know it's just a I think it's more fulfilling to the soul and it also allows the contesting of ideas to take place in almost another realm like by the creative act itself it places it in a in a different realm where it's like all right you know like you're expressing your art and it's I it feels like that's maybe a way forward to help synthesize some of the polarity that we're seeing in our in our culture is just to help people channel that into their art you know write it into poetry or music or painting whatever yeah it's it's happened forever this way so much great art has come out of um bad family situation alcoholic parents being beaten being abused all of those things have led to some of the greatest artists in the world it's um it's not required that you had a terrible life for that to be the case but it happens we see it happen often and it's almost like a releasing a valve to let the pressure out somehow it can happen through the art and sometimes people can say things in their art that they wouldn't say uh to their parents or to their even their best friends they somehow when you put it in the context of artistic expression it takes on a different life and it's a beautiful thing to take advantage of that the idea that we can take all of this negative energy that's coming towards us and turnning into something beautiful and I you know I've got to work with bands like Slayer or Black Sabbath or Metallica who talk about dark subjects but the the people who are loving them are not loving them with the energy of of whatever is negative in their music it's they're finding love together because they're sharing an experience of it being difficult to live in the world right do you know what I'm saying totally totally yeah I there's so so many directions I want to go with this I think one of the things that I saw that was really seemed off and you know no offense to the band itself but I'm going to reference them it's uh I got to see The Prodigy recently at a big festival and they haven't produced a lot of new music their music came out I think early 2000s and they had a lot of intensity and a lot of like real rage you know that kind of came through and I think that fire starter Fire Starter yeah that made him really popular but you know it's 24 years later they've been singing the same songs over and over and you just got the feeling like are you really still that mad you know like do you still like has that not been alchemized to the same degree and it just felt like it was now all of the sudden a force it was almost a parody of what was originally the authentic feeling but because those are the hits and they got to play the hits and they got to play them that intense you know so it was dissonant because it wasn't fresh it was a you know like a recitation have you ever got to see Nick Cave live Nick Cave in the Bad Seeds no uh but I'll put it on my list yeah Nick Cave it's the most terrifying show and the reason is when you see a band that are in their 20s punk rock band and edgy and angry and we we see that all the time but when you see a band of grownup men in their 50s wearing suits genuinely angry scarily angry it's a it's terrifying it's terrifying because we're not everyone grows out of it everybody grows out of it they have not grown up and you feel this uh scary power coming from the stage that's really exciting that's cool yeah it's cool to to hear that the counter example still exists and of course you know you can tap that universally I wonder if you have stories of um of artists that you've worked with who would really say to you you know Rick art saved my life or music saved my life like if it wasn't for this expression I don't think I'd be here well there's an artist who I met who I didn't work with but um it relates to this story named Melody gardeau who was blind and through singing she changed her life I don't know how much she can see but it was used as a she learned to sing as a therapy for her blindness and she's one of the most beautiful singers her voice is magnificent and it's truly a case of it it actually healing healing the person but for so many people um the the the misfit nature of musicians is many of them who are successful if they weren't doing this probably would be living homeless on the street you know they they don't they don't fit in the normal world um based on whatever's uh based on society's belief wrong with them based on their artistic output right with them yeah yeah yeah that makes sense it's uh I find that one of probably one of the worst things that I see that exists out there in the social media culture right now is when people stretch to produce their art they you know they're not really a poet but they put out their poem or they're not really a singer but they put out a song you know in those instances when somebody else comes and goes to tear them down you know just puts cringe with the vomit emoji on their artistic expression to try and stunt their ability to share their art like I don't think people realize just how Insidious trying to tear someone down who's reaching to produce their art really is like it's so important you're attacking some aspect of their soul now of course at a certain point you're all going to reach this but it just makes me kind of sad and a little little angry when I see this happening to people because this is [ __ ] art like this is the sacred you know like if you want to talk about profaning against the Lord you know like this is you're profa you're profaning against the Divine Force that's moving through somebody and trying to shut it down it's a really dark dark phen phenomenon that I see in our in our popular culture now yeah I think most uh criticism of art tells us more about the person who's doing the the criticizing than the work itself it's most art Works some degree like a mirror and you see the reflection in that you love that reflection or you see the reflection in you can't stand that reflection maybe the one you can't stand is the better reflection who knows you know yeah yeah that's I think that's absolutely true and it's usually I would imagine I I rarely see an artist you know unless you're talking about like Tupac and Biggie or something trying to tear each other like that was a whole different story that was just you know two icons who are locking horns like a great A great battle in some Mythic Forest of two Stags looking to see who is the alpha I'm not talking about that but I'm talking about arst artists any artists you don't see them trying to tear down other artists you know not like politicians do not like you see so many other people do it's like if you're an artist you're not going to spend your time tearing down another artist it's just you don't do it no it's it's not a competition it it's um we're making things for ourselves and to share and if you like it great and if you don't like it pick something else all good everybody's happy you know turn the channel yeah um early on in the in hip-hop I was involved in hip-hop early in my career um and there was a tremendous movement to ban hipop completely from the mainstream and the the same forces now that are trying to ban whatever version of free speech is happening now are the same people who 40 years ago wanted to ban hip-hop MH yeah I mean this is uh this is this country is built on these principles of freedom and the the you know that's the reason why it's the first amendment the freedom of speech and it's it's an important one it's an important one to uphold and also you know one of the many reasons why I have my given my full support to Bobby Kennedy but obviously he's not the only one talking about this but he really gets that that this is linked to the to the soul of of who we are and if we're not free fre to speak what are we what are we free to do and if we're not free to think also in the plant medicine movement I found it just egregious that you there's a force out there that's telling you that if you in the privacy of your own home want to eat some mushrooms that maybe grew in a field next to your house then you're better off getting locked in a cage and subjected to the vicisitudes of of the penal system than just being allowed to adjust and modulate and explore your own Consciousness in your own house what are you talking about if we're not free to explore our own Consciousness what are we free to do and by the way there's perfectly good laws against harming anybody else or driving --- Hearts they put on your post or whatever there's these forces trying to mold us into to be just like somebody else and then there's those brave souls who decide no no no I'm going to be the artist of my own life and I think one of the blessings for me is I came across his work early and that of Carlos cenate as well and started to understand like oh no like it's important that I seize the pen of my own Masterpiece and I seize my own paintbrush and really write my story the way I want to write it and uh and it's I I can't imagine living a life where I didn't have you know my own quill in my own hand you know yeah what what's also odd to me is the idea that anyone would be arrogant enough to think they know what's best for someone else right I can't imagine that I can't imagine think I know I know what you what's good for you to do how would I know that yeah yeah absolutely um one of the things from your book that I really loved is you talk about how an artist who looks at the ocean sees a reflection of their soul in a certain way and and I've always found that for myself like I'm my most creative around a body of water sometimes a big mountain I um we have a place in Sedona where there's a big mountain and that kind of serves similarly as the water but the water is is unbelievably special I see your background right there you're right on the water um speak a little more into that what gave you that insight about this connection between the soul and the ocean the soul of the artist in the ocean it's it's my own connection to the water I'm a Pisces uh I spend a lot of time in the water let's go what's your birthday much 10 all right I'm Feb 28 we're couple days off yeah but I I feel most comfortable in my life in the water and I feel like um a lot of the time it's the place for me I like the I like to float I like the feeling I like the coolness of it I like the lessness of it it just feels like um it's a place of possibility different than on land and it's hard for me to put into words but I feel it yeah no I understand I listened to um a little bit of your uh Tetra gamat Time Podcast with Robert Green because also a huge fan of Robert Green and I got to the part where he was talking about how difficult it's been to give up swimming you know like his ability to actually enter the water and swim the laps like he used to he was such an avid swimmer this was a a deep place of of spiritual refuge for him and and the the struggles of him you know kind of moving through that I thought it was just a beautiful interview the way that was handled and and he was touching a really deep place that I think is super inspiring for anybody who's dealing with external circum ances that have made an aspect of their life you know that much more difficult yeah I think about thinking about what's possible instead of what thinking thinking about what's not possible and an artist called me yesterday talking about a a a throat issue and possibly needing surgery and and he's a singer and he's like you know maybe I won't be able to sing again I'm like a million per you'll be able to sing again what are you talking about you're going to be fine it's you you can't you can't think in those terms of like catastrophizing you know going immediately to the worst outcome the human body heals itself you're going to be fine and um and he he came around to realizing that the the doctor told him you know in 20 days you'll probably be pretty close to fine but but we hear you know we hear the worst we um because of fear yeah and and with Robert he was talking about not being able to swim and I said can you really not swim what happens can you be in the water it's like yeah I could be in the water and then he got to well where I'm going to move to this house where then I can swim in my backyard and I can do it and so it turned around from this very sad feeling of loss to it shifted and as you listen to the conversation to a place of what's possible yeah yeah there's this this idea of like the missing tile syndrome where we will focus on what we don't have or what's missing you know you look at a whole Mosaic and there's one missing tile in this Mosaic and that's all your eyes are drawn to there's one negative comment on your on your post there's one critic who just writes a scathing review and we'll hyperfocus on that and like Andrew Dice Clay who couldn't see became blind to the Mad Love he had from so many of the people and focused on the other side it's uh it's a difficult part of the human psyche to continue and and does take an act of Will and and awareness to continue to focus on the good that's available and the good that's that you're doing out there one of the things that I I write about in the book is if you make something and everybody likes it chances are you haven't gone far [Music] enough the best work divides the audience the best work people love it and people hate it otherwise it doesn't have a strong enough charge it's like um it's always been this case it's always been the things that people are picketing are the same things that are the fans favorite yeah yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense there's that polarity and you even see it with somebody like Muhammad Ali you know like Muhammad Ali people loved him or people hated him but there was so muchy around him that Not only was he a great boxer he became one of the great icons of of the world so it's not just even with you know with art it's well I in some ways boxing is the sweet science is kind of an art in and of itself all Athletics is but yeah your point is well taken that the the ones that we remember forever you know typically had some real charge around them and that created a lot of energy yeah and if you think about Martin Luther King Gandhi Jesus they all preached love and all of them were assassinated you know it's it's unbelievable it's unbelievable that that polarity of you can't win and you know but somewhere in the in their you know place of place of rest and introspection that comes on and I believe in the undying nature of our soul I I can only imagine that they look back on their life and go [ __ ] yeah like I did it even though they even though they killed me you know like like Robert Kennedy says you know there are some things worse than death and not living our true our true potential as who we are it's we're already dead you know we're already living a fate worse than death so you know to allow that to give us courage to say no like whatever it is speak your truth you know sing your song and let the world do with it what it may yeah I interviewed John kabat zin the other day it hasn't come out yet his book wherever you go there you are is one of my favorite books about meditation and it was just the 30th anniversary and it was just um he rewrote the book for the 30th Anniversary it's beautiful and he was saying people always ask him about like is there an afterlife and he said he's not worried about an afterlife he's worried about not living this life to fully live this moment to fully live each and every moment we have now and not project into the future yeah one of the things that it feels like can hurt that is incessant comparison like if you're comparing the product of your work with other people's products and using metrics to assess whether you're successful or not you know this is something something that I that I think a lot of artists really struggle with and then you can make a choice to try to modify your art to try and be more successful but typically it makes it worse and then it some part of you feels a little bit more dead but this this impulse to compare yourself based on metrics not to use it as inspiration like wow that guy you know they really sent it like I'm inspired but in this kind of toxic comparison mindset I think is is has to be one of the greatest detriment to artists out there absolutely I think the the key is learning to play your own hand you know the hand that you're dealt is the only hand you can play if cards get dealt to me and and cards get dealt to you and I see you play two cards for me to play two cards because you played two cards that's not how you play and it feels like that's what happens it's sort of oh this worked for them so maybe I'll do what they're doing it does it that doesn't work right we're all unique single voices we're all here our purpose here is to share our the way we see it right or wrong it's not about being right it's this is what I see what do you see I see it like this what do you see yeah and that's the beauty of poetry it goes through you know what's called the hermeneutic prism Hermes the god of communication the messenger the so the prism the hermeneutic prism of our unique self who we uniquely are our unique experiences and traumas and understandings and then you know it comes out in some art form whether that's poetry or song or whatever but we're interpreting the kind of the input of the Divine and then it's going through our own flute with its own unique holes carved from its own unique trees and the spirit is the wind but you know we're the we're the unique flute and then we just play play the flute that we have with the Wind that's coming from Spirit and uh and that's a metaphor that I've thought of is just I have a uniquely shaped flute just allow the wind to move through and try to get out of my [ __ ] head and and play a and play a song you know yeah and the the reason our flute is the shape that it is is it's shaped by our life to this point so every experience that we have what we can remember what we can't remember all of that is in the flute all of we're made up of our experiences in life our memories our dreams we don't they don't start with us you know we don't have an idea we make a connection to something that reminds us of something that maybe we heard about a long time ago so it's not like we're special we're we are us that's what we are we are we're the one who lived the life that we live that has the experiences to be able to share the experiences that we can call up based on what we've experienced that's it and to and to really celebrate that universally you know beautiful it is beautiful i' I see that even with even with physical physical Beauty you know like when someone really has that inner Radiance of just loving themsel there's a beauty that transcends any transcends age transcends body shape transcends all of this it's like when you know yourself in your uniqueness through the beauty of your being that is so much more powerful and and I find it a a tragedy that so many people are getting surgeries and modifications to try and make them look like something else that's worked for someone else on some Instagram page or some magazine cover and it's like it's just not it's not your true beauty you know you're trying to whittle away at the flute that that spirit is has carved for you and I remember I got in a really gnarly car accident and it ripped up my face pretty good it kind of pulled my nose up off and I had scars and so great plastic surgeons who were there in the ER who kind of stitched me up and did a good job but there was obviously a lot more work that you could do I mean I'm sure you can see my nose has a little has a little Crook in it and I got a I got a tooth that's turning black cuz it got killed when the root got killed from the impact of it and then the doctors were all like we'll get you back just how you look before don't you worry you know just three more surgeries and and I was like I don't think I need that you know like I don't really don't think I need that that accident is a part of me it's a part of my life you know like I'm still I can still laugh fine I can still smile fine I can taste food you I can kiss my lover you know like I don't think I need to be like like like I was before you know no and looking at your face you look like you have fun I do I do it's true it's true I've lived I've lived a life I've lived a life yeah same with yourself well this has been an absolute pleasure Rick is there is there anything else you want to leave people with obviously um let me know when the the website comes out I'd love to share that and and dive in a little more um but anything else you want to kind of appoint people to or any other final wisdom you want to leave them with no no no I'm thank you so much for talking to me it was really fun yeah this was great cool all right Rick thanks for everything you do so much love thank you bye bye bye thanks for tuning in to this video make sure you hit subscribe follow me at Aubrey Marcus check out the Aubrey Marcus podcast available everywhere and leave a comment let me know if this video resonated or what else you would like to hear from me in the future thank you so much