Member Since: 9/7/2006
Posts: 8,163
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Will Smith Says Jaden Only Has One Pair of Shoes
Will Smith on Kids, His Career, Ferguson, and Failure
SR: Your kids catch a ton of crap on Twitter and elsewhere. That can't be fun.
WS: With this generation of kids growing up, the technological battering is almost the norm. They generally avoid the stuff. They're really well-adjusted around this business and understanding the nature of having to take a battering. It's a brutal world out there for young people, for everybody. Willow had one moment. The Young Turks are Willow's idol. They have a TV show online. They're like a really powerful group of young writers, hosts, and political commentators. Willow loves the Young Turks, and that was the only moment I saw her cry. Other than that, she's really well-adjusted with it. And Jaden understands that that's a part of this business. If he wants to do it, there's a certain amount of battery that you have to be willing to live through. We have a quote that I put up in the house from Pema Chödrön: "Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us." We call it leaning into the sharp parts. Something hurts, lean in. You just lean into that point until it loses its power over you. There's a certain amount of suffering that you have to be willing to sustain if you want to have a good life. And the trick is to be able to sustain it with your heart open and still be loving. That is the real trick.
SR: Art, not science.
WS: That's the thing that is painful: I always thought it was a science. I thought there was math. I was always looking for the math. As a parent, as a husband, as an actor, just as a human being, I suck a lot. You know, I suck so much more than I've thought that I should at forty-six. I hate not knowing what I should be doing. I don't mind not being where I'm going, but I hate not knowing where I should be going.
SR: You've talked about "slavery to dollars."
WS: You never lose the mentality. It's such a strange thing. Jaden, my sixteen-year-old, he has one pair of shoes.
SR: That's it?
WS: He has three pair of pants and he has five shirts.
SR: Total?
WS: Total. He has refused to be a slave to money. I so respect that. The younger generation is less of an ownership generation, anyway. And it's such an interesting thing to watch, because I came from a middle-class background, but, you know, our lights and gas would be cut off from not paying the bill. I grew up in a house where you would need the kerosene heaters in the winter in case the bills didn't get paid. And he's from the complete other end of the spectrum. And it's so interesting to me that from growing up in that space, he could see the need for things in a way that he's rejecting. He's like, "I'm not gonna let myself need things in that way"—but I would like him to get another pair of shoes.
SR: Are you enjoying any of the material fruits of your labor?
WS: There is a great line in Lawrence of Arabia. Anthony Quinn. "The Turks pay me a golden treasure, yet I am poor because I am a river to my people." I just love that line. So I'm getting a T-shirt made: I AM A RIVER TO MY PEOPLE. I just love that line. I want to take care of people. I want to help people. The maximum joy that I have is when I can create something that makes someone else's life lighter, brighter, or better. And I'm past cars and jewelry, you know? I don't even wear a watch.
yeah ok Will 
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