Keep working, improving your step.

But cancer has also ushered in new ways of being alive. Even when I am this distant from Canadian family and friends, everything feels as if it is painted in bright colors. In my vulnerability, I am seeing my world without the Instagrammed filter of breezy certainties and perfectible moments. I can’t help noticing the brittleness of the walls that keep most people fed, sheltered and whole. I find myself returning to the same thoughts again and again: Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard.

Block out the noise and trust your gut.

That we are all no more and no less than a single thread in a gigantic web of life. What we do and how we behave has repercussions for the entire web.

The studios are superreluctant to give final cut. They have so much money riding on these things, so they want a committee to go and rule the roost.

I’m in a transition, Hans. I am painting, and I am painting over and then painting, and then painting over, and destroying, and painting, and destroying, and painting over. I am just trying to find the next thing, and the only way I think I can find it is to keep doing things and learning from it.

But there’s always a way. Sometimes restrictions are a big blessing.

Transcendental Meditation, it’s obviously the most important thing to do day in and day out. Transcending is the key to a better and better life, and this idea is catching on more and more in the world.

Well, my family moved to Alexandria, Virginia from Boise, Idaho when I was in the eighth grade. Pretty soon after that, one night, on the front lawn of my girlfriend’s house, I met a boy named Toby Keeler, who went to a private school. He told me his father was a painter. At first I thought he meant a house painter, but then he said, “No, fine art painter” and a bomb went off in my head. In that millisecond, I only wanted to be a painter.

What do I think it is? A fulfillment of a desire gives you happiness.