In a recent interview with the New York Times’ T Magazine, Jaden Smith said his goal is to be “just the most craziest person of all time,” and based on quotes from said interview — which he did alongside his little sister Willow — he’s right on track with that goal.
This is 16-year-old Jaden and 14-year-old Willow, the famous children children of famous people Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, on the concept of time:
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: 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: 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.
WILLOW: Because living.
JADEN: Right, because you have to live. There’s a theoretical physicist inside all of our minds, and you can talk and talk, but it’s living.
WILLOW: It’s the action of it.
Willow and Jaden on Willow’s music:
WILLOW: And the feeling of being like, this is a fragment of a holographic reality that a higher consciousness made.
JADEN: [bursts into laughter] As soon as me and Willow started releasing music, that’s one thing that the whole world took away is, okay, they unlocked another step of honesty. If these guys can be honest about everything, then we can be more honest.
WILLOW: 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: 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: And then you think about what you think, which is very dangerous.
JADEN: I think Willow’s had a huge evolution.
WILLOW: I mean, “Whip My Hair” was a great thing. When I look back I think, “Wow, I did so much for young black girls and girls around the world. Telling them that they can be themselves and to not be afraid to be themselves.” And I’m doing that now but in a whole different way, coming from source energy and universal truths. People will be, like, “Oh, I’m not going to make a song about exactly how I feel, all the bad ways that I feel, and put it out in the world so everyone can judge me.” But for me, it’s a part of me, it’s my artistic journey.
JADEN: 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.
Jaden and Willow on Willow’s writing process:
JADEN: She gets in the booth and just starts singing.
WILLOW: I mean, the beat is usually what moves me. Or I think of concepts. Then when I hear a beat that is, like, elaborating on that concept, I just go off.
JADEN: She freestyles and finds out what she likes. Same thing with me.
WILLOW: You piece it together. You piece together those little moments of inspiration.
JADEN: Honestly, we’re just trying to make music that we think is cool. We don’t think a lot of the music out there is that cool. So we make our own music. We don’t have any song that we like to listen to on the P.C.H. by any other artist, you know?
WILLOW: That’s what I do with novels. There’re no novels that I like to read so I write my own novels, and then I read them again, and it’s the best thing.
JADEN: Willow’s been writing her own novels since she was 6.
WILLOW: Me and Jaden just figured out that our voices sound like chocolate together. As good as chocolate tastes, it sounds that good.
Willow and Jaden on breathing and babies:
WILLOW: Breathing is meditation; life is a meditation. You have to breathe in order to live, so breathing is how you get in touch with the sacred space of your heart.
JADEN: When babies are born, their soft spots bump: It has, like, a heartbeat in it. That’s because energy is coming through their body, up and down.
WILLOW: Prana energy.
JADEN: It’s prana energy because they still breathe through their stomach. They remember. Babies remember.
WILLOW: When they’re in the stomach, they’re so aware, putting all their bones together, putting all their ligaments together. But they’re shocked by this harsh world.
JADEN: By the chemicals and things, and then slowly…
WILLOW: As they grow up, they start losing.
JADEN: You know, they become just like us.
Willow and Jaden on things worth having:
JADEN: Something that’s worth buying to me is like Final Cut Pro or Logic.
WILLOW: A canvas. Paint. A microphone.
JADEN: 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: That’s what art is, shocking people. Sometimes shocking yourself.
Willow and Jaden on school being unauthentic and depressing:
WILLOW: Yes, basically, but the crazy thing is it doesn’t have to be like that.
JADEN: 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: Forever, ‘til the day that we’re in our bed.
JADEN: Kids who go to normal school are so teenagery, so angsty.
WILLOW: They never want to do anything, they’re so tired.
JADEN: You never learn anything in school. Think about how many car accidents happen every day. Driver’s ed? What’s up? I still haven’t been to driver’s ed because if everybody I know has been in an accident, I can’t see how driver’s ed is really helping them out.
WILLOW: 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.
