Rick Rubin: Protocols to Access Creative Energy and Process

If you're making something with a freedom of 'This is something I'm making for myself for now; that's all it is. It's a diary entry, everything I make is a diary entry,' the beauty of a diary entry is I can write my diary entry, and you can't tell me my diary entry wasn't good enough or that's not what I experienced. Of course, it's what I experienced. Im writing a personal diary for myself. No one else can judge it. It is my experience of my life.

As Maharishi described it, every time you meditate, it's like making a deposit in a bank, so it's always there. Every time you do it, you're building a base. And the goal of the practice is less about the practice; the practice is to change the way you are in the world.

The question of 'worth it' is reliant on an outcome. We don't make these things for an outcome. It's not the mindset to make something great. The outcome happens. You're making the best thing you can make ... Whatever happens after that, happens. And that part that happens after it is completely out of your control. Putting any energy into that part that's out of your control to waste of time...

Sometimes the innovative ideas don't come when you're looking for an innovative idea; it's just there's this slot to fill, this is the way it's normally done, I'm not comfortable doing it the normal way, how else can we solve this problem? And sometimes, it doesn't just solve the problem, but it becomes an actual feature.

I try to live in as natural a way as possible. I try to eat as few processed foods as possible. I try to eat grass-fed animals. And I use hardly any products of any kind that aren't just something that grows or lives on the planet.

I think most people would probably benefit from healthy red meat. I'm saying that only because it's so vilified in our culture.

I'm fearless when it comes to art. I'm not fearless when it comes to life. Life is my relationships. Art is where we can do these crazy things and have fun and try extreme things and see what happens. That's a safe place to do that because it's just expression.

I live a very protected monk-like life because simulation gets in the way of my ability to be where I want to be, so I tend to stay away from things.

There are many ideas that have not yet come to fruition, but I wouldn't say I've abandoned any. It seems like the ideas have a time when they want to come to fruition, and regardless of what I think, I don't get to determine the calendar.

I've been told with every new thing that I've done it's a terrible idea and it won't work, every single time.

If someone's not telling the truth, then each person is experiencing a different understanding of the world. You're living in two different worlds. They're never actually together when you're experiencing a different world.