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We're all Scared

2012-11-16 · letter vlog · Hank · 3:59 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion

Hank argues that everyone is a creator, above all of their own self, so everyone fears sharing their creations and being judged; the only remedy he has found is to keep creating in spite of the fear.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting; the argument (creating is terrifying, everyone creates, so everyone is terrified); the fear is in sharing, which gives up all power over the creation

  • ★★★ Hank argues in two postulates that creating is terrifying and everyone creates, so everyone is terrified. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says the terror lies in sharing a creation: once it is in front of others you lose all power over it, though your hopes and work are in it and the world may despise it. — 00:00:17

00:00:52 — Everyone is a creator: ideas, jokes, friendships and above all the self; why 'just be yourself' is bad advice; talking to strangers and fear of judgment

  • ★★ Hank rejects the idea that only some people (Steve Jobs making the iPod) create: everyone creates ideas, jokes and friendships. — 00:00:52

  • ★★★ The creation that matters most is the self; Hank hates the advice 'just be yourself' because nobody is born with a self: we make it from books, culture, friends and family. — 00:01:14

    “we aren't born with a self. We create ourselves.”

  • ★★ Hank finds talking to a stranger always scary, and feels everyone must to some extent, because you are making yourself inside the other person. (hedged) — 00:01:59

  • ★★ Hank says we all fear judgment because judgment is someone creating you in their head without your permission or full knowledge of who you are. — 00:02:12

00:02:27 — Bad strategies for less fear (blandness, not trying, not sharing); terror as a measure of worth; the one solution: create constantly, including yourself and friendships; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank says the ways to make it less frightening (minimal effort, blandness, not caring, never sharing) are terrible ways to live, worst when people do this with their selves. — 00:02:27
  • ★★★ Hank has come to believe a creator can tell how worthwhile a creation is by how terrified they are of it. — 00:03:05
  • ★★★ Hank's only solution is to create in spite of fear and constantly, for everyone around you, and to consciously create yourself every day. — 00:03:12
  • ★★ Hank urges creating friendships, believing friends are the commodity by which we should all be judged. — 00:03:31
  • ★★ Creating constantly does not remove the fear, Hank says; you just get more comfortable in it. — 00:03:41

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Hank's description adds that the brothers are playing Carnegie Hall, linking the Carnegie Hall event page for An Evening of Awesome. — video description
  • ★ Hank's description places the video in a chain of response videos prompted by a video from Charlie, including one by Michael Aranda. — video description
  • ★ Hank says the chain of response videos led him to make his own video, and the comments on it prompted this one, which closely resembles a video he made on HanksChannel, spruced up for Vlogbrothers. — video description · hankschannel

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: personal identity

Also: iPod · Steve Jobs

Only in the description or credits: An Evening of Awesome · Carnegie Hall · Charlie McDonnell · hankschannel · Michael Aranda

Also centred on personal identity: The Space Time Continuum: Thoughts from Dublin · Becoming Someone Else · Who Am I?! - Some thoughts on Personal Identity · Can You Ever Really Change? · Are We The Same Person? · NOW I AM THE SCIENCE ONE…

Later videos replying to this one