The Purpose of Life
DP: Do you find inspiration to help you write and record new music when you travel to new cities?
Mike Posner: Sure. I mean some of the cities are right in the titles, “I Took a Pill in Ibiza” or “Buried in Detroit”.
I’m purposely ambiguous when you ask me this question, because I generally do not tell the stories of how/when/why I write my songs. Often, these stories can undermine the song itself. It can be like placing an ugly frame around a beautiful painting. This isn’t always the case. Sometimes a story can make a song even better, but it needs to be thought out. But I often think that great songs are like great jokes: explaining them can often drain them of their magic. An artist of any medium should be careful how much they say about their art.
DP: Is there a place you want to visit right now that’s on your bucket list?
Mike Posner: Israel. I had a trip scheduled there, but I had to change it.
Honestly, I used to be of the philosophy – and I know this is sort of the philosophy of your website – that the point of life is to gain as much worldly experience as possible. See as many things as possible, go to as many places as possible, make love with as many women as possible, and eat as many delicacies as possible.
I look at life a bit differently now.
I think the purpose of life is to feel good. There’s no point of driving to the Grand Canyon and seeing it with my eyes if I can not be happy doing so.
A study published in the journal Applied Research in Quality of Life showed that the happiest time of a vacation is the time spent planning it, when one is still home. That means that the actual happiness is inside of our heads, not in the physical place we want to go to. That’s the mistake that we all make: the tragic human flaw.
We think that going somewhere else, or being someone else, or doing something else will make us happier. When the truth is, we can be happy right here, right now. There is no future, there are only more right heres, right nows. If I take a trip to Paris and I’m standing in line to go up the Eiffel Tower, I will still be in the middle of another right here, right now. So I’d better learn how to enjoy right here, right now, because it’s all I really have.
But hey, I’m just a singer; don’t listen to me.
Click on the photos to view bigger in the gallery.
Photos by photographer Meredith Truax.
