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I am Grateful for My Worry

2024-11-29 · letter vlog · Hank · 3:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: Personal life, Nerdfighteria) · mode: Personal essay · tags: calendar ritual, self promotion, community lore

The day after Thanksgiving, Hank names two public things he is grateful for: the many people who want the brothers' weird charitable and educational ideas to succeed, and his own worry, which he argues is in service of what he cares about and should be thanked and accepted rather than cast out; he plugs Black Friday deals at complexly.store and good.store.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Day after Thanksgiving: making Hanklerfish for next year's P4A; Hank won every lottery, including cancer after chemo

  • ★★ Hank shows himself making Hanklerfish for the Project for Awesome, which will be held next year (2025); viewers cannot get them yet. — 00:00:00 · Hanklerfish, Project for Awesome
  • ★★ Hank says there are things about the world and his life he doesn't love, but in terms of life's lotteries he has won them all. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says he also won the 'got cancer' lottery, but only after winning the lottery of being born when and where chemo was available, so it balances. (playful) — 00:00:00 · cancer, chemotherapy

00:00:41 — First gratitude: people who want the brothers' weird ideas to succeed; the video as a shared space

  • ★★★ Hank is grateful that many people want the brothers' weird ideas to succeed: free educational videos for anyone online, and socks, coffee, soap and tea with all profit to charity. — 00:00:41 · Good Store
  • ★ Hank says many of those people are in the room right now, meaning this video, which he imagines as a bizarre physical space bringing consciousnesses together inside and outside time. (playful) — 00:00:41

00:01:11 — Black Friday: Complexly calendar at complexly.store, 25% off at good.store

  • ★★ It being Black Friday, Hank asks viewers to get the illustrated Complexly calendar at complexly.store to support Complexly's work. — 00:01:11 · Complexly
  • ★★ Hank asks viewers to do the rest of their shopping at good.store, 25% off everything this weekend with free shipping over $59, the best deals of the year. — 00:01:11 · Good Store

00:01:40 — Second gratitude: his worry, from online pile-ons to obligations; thanking worry instead of quitting or resenting it

  • ★★ Hank is grateful to those people because he doesn't think it is interesting unless they are trying to do something cool and good together. — 00:01:40
  • ★★ Hank says the social internet isn't always chill: when he gets a fact wrong or a tweet proves controversial, many people seem ready to gleefully say they always knew he wasn't good. — 00:01:40
  • ★ Hank says he is the last person to give an objective take on whether he is a good person, and he has no idea. (playful, unsure) — 00:02:09
  • ★★★ Hank says he is grateful for his worry: he has many worry spirals, but realized that if he is going to care he is going to worry, and worry serves something. — 00:02:09
  • ★★ Hank worries about the community, his health, the DFTBA, Good Store and Complexly teams, meeting obligations to Partners In Health, and how all this relies on their reputations. — 00:02:09 · Nerdfighteria, DFTBA Records, Good Store, Complexly, Partners In Health
  • ★★★ Hank says he could end the worry by quitting, or carry it resentfully, or thank it: it is telling him about something important, and he is listening. — 00:02:52
  • ★★ Over Thanksgiving weekend Hank tells his worry he loves it and would be nothing without it, but asks it to hush until he is back at work. (playful) — 00:02:52

00:03:41 — Sign-off and repeated good.store sale reminder

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description gives the Good.Store coupon code Save25 for 25% off everything through the weekend, the biggest discount of the year. — video description · Good Store
  • ★★ The description says Hank woke up worried this morning despite having made this video earlier in the week partly to prevent that. — video description
  • ★★ The description says recognizing that worry is trying to do something helps: it is not to be cast out but accepted, especially to do interesting and hard things. — video description
  • ★ In a channel comment, Hank recalls that one year they did Hanklerfish on cut-up drop cloth and says it may be time for that again. — creator comment · Hanklerfish

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: gratitude · Worry

Also: Projects: Complexly · DFTBA Records · Good Store · Project for Awesome

Works: Complexly calendars · Hanklerfish

Organizations: Partners In Health

Concepts: cancer · chemotherapy

Events: Black Friday · Thanksgiving

Also centred on gratitude: The Things that People Do (Thoughts from New York City) (Pizzamas Day 7) · We Could All Use a Little Change · My Greatest Tool Against Vaccine Misinformation · I Just Can't Do It Anymore · On Balance · My Deathday

Also centred on Worry: Why I'm Worried about 2020 · Four Years Ago

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