Great Interview With Brad Pitt
http://www.gq.com/story/brad-pitt-gq-style-cover-story
-You've played characters in pain. What is pain, emotional and physical?
"Yeah, I'm kind of done playing those. I think it was more pain tourism. It was still an avoidance in some way. I've never heard anyone laugh bigger than an African mother who's lost nine family members. What is that? I just got R&B for the first time. R&B comes from great pain, but it's a celebration. To me, it's embracing what's left. It's that African woman being able to laugh much more boisterously than I've ever been able to."
- Was it hard to stop smoking pot?
"No. Back in my stoner days, I wanted to smoke a joint with Jack and Snoop and Willie. You know, when you're a stoner, you get these really stupid ideas. Well, I don't want to indict the others, but I haven't made it to Willie yet."
- Metaphors are my life.
"You strip down to the foundation and break out the mortar. I don't know. For me this period has really been about looking at my weaknesses and failures and owning my side of the street. I'm an asshole when it comes to this need for justice. I don't know where it comes from, this hollow quest for justice for some perceived slight. I can drill on that for days and years. It's done me no good whatsoever. It's such a silly idea, the idea that the world is fair. And this is coming from a guy who hit the lottery, I'm well aware of that. I hit the lottery, and I still would waste my time on those hollow pursuits."
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That's the thing about becoming un-numb. You have to stare down everything that matters to you.
That's it! Sitting with those horrible feelings, and needing to understand them, and putting them into place. In the end, you find: I am those things I don't like. That is a part of me. I can't deny that. I have to accept that. And in fact, I have to embrace that. I need to face that and take care of that. Because by denying it, I deny myself. I am those mistakes. For me every misstep has been a step toward epiphany, understanding, some kind of joy. Yeah, the avoidance of pain is a real mistake. It's the real missing out on life. It's those very things that shape us, those very things that offer growth, that make the world a better place, oddly enough, ironically. That make us better.