Category: Videos

A chat between Hank and Ze

Hank Green and Ze Frank talking about creativity (among other things). Some tidbits from the podcast:

This question of where ideas come from, I think it’s central to my life and certainly a lot of other creative people. And I think that the importance often comes from some sort of an urgency that we have to not only have ideas, but to have ideas that feel like you. In addition to that, it’s like there’s one thing to have an idea, but then there’s another thing to decide to make it, you know, birth it.

You know, I don’t know how it plays out in your mind, but I have a lot of thoughts and have a lot of ideas and there’s a lot of possibilities and you do have to kind of like feel them and feel what the possibility space is around them, you know?

That’s something that I think you get better at over a creative life is having an instinct for the shape of an idea and whether or not it has the qualities that you know are going to mature into something or kind of allow you to play around in a way that feels right. Yeah. So, you know, in a lot of cases I’ll sit on stuff for years even because I don’t have the shape of the thing.

Ze Frank

Also:

Ze: For me personally, I actually feel like I want to make things that are uncomfortable.

Hank: Do you want to make things that are uncomfortable for you?

Ze: For me to make, you know, generally that there’s stuff that kind of comes easy to you. And this is, you know, everybody knows this is that, you know, you get frustrated with people for not doing the stuff that they can just do, right? Um, and yours is sort of like, you know, make another funny thing.

Hank: Come on. Like, play the hits.

Ze: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I think that making things is about becoming. That’s the joy of it is is that you you see something develop and birth. You feel yourself getting better through the struggle. You feel like some kind of emergence that happened like there’s a journey. And um comfort to me is usually a sign that you’re off from the meat of it.

(The quotes are pulled from Youtube’s auto-transcript mode, so apologies for any grammar errors.)

Kindness, Empathy, and Respect

Adam Savage on enduring today’s uncertain, hostile times (found via Chris Koerner):

It’s some good thoughts, and I agree: the experiences that I think about most fondly, and the work that I’m most proud of, were all approached with a sense of kindness, empathy, and respect. (And as he mentions, the regrets that I do have largely center around occasions where I failed apply or communicate with those principles in mind, and let others down in the process.)

Earworms for June

On a bit of a 90s kick here. There was this whole period in the mid-90s that had an explosion of music that just hit this sort of zeitgeist, where even the songs that musically differed still had this particular DNA that you can absolutely see in hindsight. And frankly, some of the songs still feel relevant today, musically and lyrically. Anyway, hope you enjoy. (Trying to keep these to 10-12 songs – there were a lot of songs I thought about adding but opted not to.)

Playlist:

Got any favorites from that era that you’d add?

Sleep Phases

Hank over on vlogbrothers has a quick little video talking about what is arguably a disorder, but only because society doesn’t support it particularly well: having a different sleep pattern than most people.

My natural sleep cycle is the same as his: when left to my own devices, I always tended towards being up til 2 or 3am, and waking up closer to 10am. Of course, for the past several years I’ve had a dog that thinks whenever it gets light out is the right time to wake up, and a job that (when I was living on the west coast) trended towards early morning meetings (to accommodate folks in Europe… and because we just had a lot of morning people on the team). I will say, it’s been a lot easier to wrangle the meetings since moving three time zones eastward.

I’m mostly adjusted to my current cycle (which puts me to bed around midnight and up around 7-7:30), but I still find it pretty easy to start slipping towards 1 or 2am, especially if I’m taken out of my routine for things like vacation. I suspect I’ll still be on this cycle for quite some time, since even if I won the lottery and didn’t need to worry about work schedules, Cecil is still a morning puppy (and Mabel has picked up his habit). And that’s (mostly) fine. But I do sometimes miss the way my brain felt when I was able to be on my natural sleep cycle instead – I feel like I was more relaxed, more at ease, and had more spoons for things.

Love your music

Wil Wheaton had a nice post talking about music and discovering the full length album version of In A Gadda Da Vida (all 17 minutes of it) for the first time recently. I can’t share in that particular revelation, as I was already familiar with those epic organ and drum solos – Dad has/had the album and we definitely spent some time enjoying the “back catalog” over the years. Worth a listen if you haven’t, though!

It got me thinking a bit about this fantastic bit from Joe Pera Talks With You:

There’s something great about just earnestly loving a song, and letting yourself get swallowed by it for a while. Also, that even if you think everyone already knows a song or movie or book, there’s still so, so many people who’ve never heard of it before. I don’t watch reaction videos very often, but sometimes it really tickles me to watch reaction videos of someone hearing a song for the first time, when it actually hits them and they’re left saying “Wow, how did I miss this?”

On that note: some recent earworms to infect/enjoy:

Playlist above:

The Internet is Worse Than Ever

If you’re not familiar with Kurzgesagt, they’re a Youtube channel that does well researched, informative videos about a broad range of topics. In this case, it’s about the impact of social media on society, and clarifies some information about social filter bubbles and social sorting.

I suppose it’s unsurprising to say that I agree with their thoughts on how to improve the situation – move out of the “digital town square” and get back to smaller communities. It’s healthier for society, it’s healthier for you. This also all puts me in mind of a recent article in Garbage Day, which was discussing that the internet has actually gotten smaller, with a subset of creators making an outsized portion of the content you see day-to-day. In short, social consolidation leads to a reversion to the same sort of “broadcasting” mentality of older media. Social media serves as a channel for this sort of broadcasted content, and if you want to get back to a broader, weirder, more diverse range of content, the answer is to get back to a broader, weirder, more diverse range of online communities.

That’s a trade-off, economically speaking: if you make it big in a centralized outlet, you stand to make a lot of money – smaller communities inherently have less money to offer. But, that presumes you’ll manage to rise to the top of the creator heap – it’s far more likely that you’ll fall somewhere in the long tail of a pareto distribution. In a more distributed, fractured internet, the peak is lower, but you have more opportunity to get a slice of that sum, so you might actually end up making about the same (or more). It’s hard to say.

That’s a bit of a digression, though. Go watch the video, it’s only ~11 minutes long, and let me know what you think.

Engagement is Not Engagement

John Green’s latest vlogbrothers video touches on something worth thinking about:

He’s talking about the low-calorie social media debates that drive what we call “engagement” – namely, more comments and likes or dislikes – which leads to increased view counts, and higher priority in algorithms (whether on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, or elsewhere). I’m calling it low-calorie social media because these sorts of debates are easy to have an opinion on, but they’re not substantive (and I’d argue, often not nutritious either).

Actual engagement – something more lasting and impactful than just a like or a passing comment – is hard. It’s hard to build, it’s hard to sustain, it’s often messy. But it’s more fulfilling. Even when it leads to challenging questions or work to be done, you can at least feel like you’re making some sort of progress on something that is meaningful, whether that’s some form of volunteering, philanthropy, or do-gooding, or if it’s just deepening connections with either individuals or a community.

I think John is right that there is a place for those “instantly debatable” questions and topics. But I think it’s a lot like junk food: it’s fine as a snack, but if that’s all you’re eating, it’s just going to make you sick.

Hank Green on Seeing Both

Not much to add that wasn’t covered in the video. The world (and life) is a complex mishmash of feelings and motivations and struggles, and to see it through just one lens does both ourselves and others a disservice. Yes, there are plenty of examples of overt harm and things driven by hate, or malice, or ignorance, or sociopathic disinterest and apathy. But it’s not all of what’s happening out there, nor even most of it. It’s worth stepping back occasionally, and appreciating what there is to appreciate, even if it’s not perfect.

Hank’s Guide to the Cold

Hank Explains Living in Cold Climates

I’ve talked about this with a number of people, about why I’m perfectly happy to live somewhere that is grey and rainy but almost never drops below 40 degrees (F), and a lot of the winter is spent right around 50. Hank is dropping some truth bombs here, on how to make the most of living in a cold climate.

He’s right though: try to enjoy it. Gotta find the good parts while you can.