Q060: What sort of philosophies do you entertain or live your life by? I am thinking of one philosophy you talked about, mainly that Rock is a way of life...could you elaborate on that more? What are your ideas of fate and chance and how they play into music and life?
A060: For me Rock means far more
than just rock music in its narrowest sense. Rock is a way of life, and
that in itself is the AMT slogan. Do whatever you want, Don't do whatever
you don't want!
Another favorite slogan of mine is "no hope". Hope is an attitude
of expectation towards an as yet unexperienced future. However, those kinds
of expectations are almost always doomed to be betrayed, or the results
will be less than you had expected. Even if you have hopeful expectations,
if you stint upon the effort needed to produce that result, it is only natural
that you will be happy with the result. To still have hope even when you
know deep in your heart that you are not putting in enough effort is a part
of human weakness. It's clear to me that hope can only ever lead to greater
or lesser disappointment. I believe that only 10 percent of anything we
hoped for, no matter what the area, ever comes to past. But because you
hoped for so much more, even that 10 percent that did come to pass seems
like a disappointing result. That's the basis of my "no hope"
philosophy. Because I hoped for nothing from the beginning, even a result
of 10% feels can said to be a great success to me. Hope always breeds disappointment.
Which is why I never hope, why I never regret the past of worry about the
future. Living in the moment is all. And my rule for living is "Do
whatever you want, Don't do whatever you don't want!"