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Sometimes, people can be extraordinarily judgmental and closed-minded to anyone different or special, which is why it's so hard for young people in this day and age to be comfortable enough in their own skin to not listen to the people picking on them.

As you get older, you kind of take on things and become kind of different than what you used to be as a kid, obviously.

I know that when I grew up I was pretty sheltered, and didn't come to understand much about the world until I was in my really late teens and early twenties, and that process continues.

Maybe all teenagers feel like they don't fit in. I never felt like a cool kid. I remember being bullied for being Asian.

I was in high school, and when you get to be 14, 15, you start to feel a little more like your own person so that you can assert your adulthood a little bit.

People think that young people don't care about things, but I think they do care; they just aren't super interested in conforming to what older people think are the right way to do things.

I'm always interested in how people, myself included, have ideas of themselves, of how they thought they would be, or of how they want to be seen. And the older you get, the world keeps telling you different things about yourself. And how people either adjust to those things and let go of adolescent notions. Or they dig in deeper.

Growing up, I just wanted to be like everyone else. I didn't value or understand the beauty in being different at the time in my life.

At the end of the day, people have to respect people's differences. I am different than some people would like me to be.