Ze Frank is a humorist, "online performance artist", and video blogger who hosted a popular 1-year web video experiment called the show with zefrank. I had heard his name around the Intertubes before, but only "discovered" the show when it was three-fourths of the way through its run. I became a fan almost instantly and quickly grew to admire his comedic timing, style of presentation, and ability to make a penis joke one second and then deliver a thoughtful analysis of the human experience the next. If you never saw the show I recommend checking out his popular episodes.

Amazingly, Ze produced a new episode every weekday for a year (a feat I'm envious of, being unable myself to muster more than a couple blog posts in a week). In an interview with CecilVortex.com, he discussed his thoughts on the nature of creativity. When asked about the "secret of living a creative and productive life", he had this to say:

You know, I really think that people have to come into this in their own way. For me, this notion of "creativity" is sort of a blank word. It doesn't really mean much. And the more you look into it and look at how different people explore it, you realize that it's a word that has many, many different definitions.

The thing that I focus in on is being interested and realizing that anything that you approach has almost a fractal pattern. Anything. If it's yarn for knitting, you realize that if you have any interest , there's more information there than would last you a year, to get into and understand and play around with, not to mention all the tactile qualities of yarn and what it feels like when you stretch it across something or ball it up. So that's how I look at this -- having the energy to stay interested and the energy to spark interest in things.

That last bit, "the energy to stay interested and the energy to spark interest in things", is I think the most interesting. It is something I struggle with. I write this blog and engage in other creative endeavors both for myself and for the audience I'm trying to build. But where does the energy for that come from? How does one continually tap it? Is it a bottomless well, or are its resources finite? I often feel like it is the latter. Ze doesn't have the answer to this, nor does anyone I think, and Ze begins his reply by recognizing that creativity is tied to the individual, and that we all have to discover the process for ourselves. For him, the answer has been to be productive every day ("I make something every day" he says when asked about any daily habits he might have). I can definitely see the wisdom in this, as like anything, creativity can be honed and sharpened through practice, and sometimes creativity begets creativity. On the other hand, I think most people would agree that you can reach a point where you feel "tapped" and unable to draw forth anything more.

There is an excellent episode of theshow in which Ze discusses what he calls "brain crack". In response to a question posted in his comments, "Are you running out of ideas?", he replies with what I consider to be an incredibly insightful observation:

I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later.

Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themselves of how perfectly that idea should be executed. And they imagine it on a beautiful platter with glitter and rose petals. And everyone's clapping for them. But the bummer is most ideas kinda suck when you do 'em. And no matter how much you plan you still have to do something for the first time. And you're almost guaranteed the first time you do something it'll blow. But somebody who does something bad three times still has three times the experience of that other person who's still dreaming of all the applause. When I get an idea, even a bad one, I try to get it out into the world as fast as possible, 'cause I certainly don't want to be addicted to brain crack.

It's advice that I take to heart, but to continue the metaphor, I haven't yet found the will to kick the "brain crack" habit. Understanding you have a problem is certainly the first step, but I don't know how to get on the road to wellness. I don't know how to bridge the gap between the ideas and their implementation. Or I'm too afraid of failure to do so.

I'm that "other person" who's still dreaming of all the applause.