The April Fool

I’m an April Fool.

Not just today, oh no…I’m literally a fool this entire month of April. A complete and undefendable idiot.

You see, this April is BEDA (Blog Every Day April), and I – fool that I am – have chosen to participate.

BEDA was declared when author Maureen Johnson decided that she was going to write a blog every single day during the month of April. So, on March 28, the news hit Twitter:

By announcing it to the world, though, Johnson effectively made it an actual thing. Bloggers of all venues have flocked to the idea. Alex Day, the popular YouTuber known as Nerimon, adapted it for video bloggers and created VEDA (Vlog Every Day April).

I wasn’t sure if I was going to jump on this particular bandwagon. It’s one thing to log on to DailyBooth.com and snap a photo every day (a task I’ve failed at several times already), but to actually write something or edit a video every single day? Even this morning, I was waffling back and forth between facing the challenge or being, as I saw it, “realistic.”

After all, this is hardly the time to be taking more things on. I’m looking for a job, I’m trying to finish up old projects even as I’m getting set to start filming my feature-length adaptation of Destiny of the Gnome, the short film I shot for Tacoma’s annual 72 Hour Film Competition last year. Add my Eastertime obligations as the sound technician for a local church, helping other people with various projects, practices and potential performances with the improv group I’m in and the Frost Park sidewalk chalk competitions starting up again and you’ll see that April is a crowded month.

There are a million reasons why I shouldn’t even try this. Strangely enough, that’s exactly why I need to.

I’m notorious for taking a long time to finish things. I wouldn’t have nearly as much on my plate right now if this weren’t the case. At the very least, I would certainly be a great deal less stressed about what is on my plate. Clearly, this is a bad habit that needs to change.

I’ve tried for years to address the symptoms, without very much success. It’s time to cut out the root of this life-long problem: brain crack.

“Brain crack” is a term from the popular video blog, The Show with Ze Frank. In the episode titled “washington, ideas, brain crack”, Frank describes brain crack as ideas that are left perpetually unfulfilled due to a person’s belief that they aren’t yet capable of doing it “right.”

“Some people get addicted to that brain crack,” Frank notes in his video. “And the longer they wait the more they convince themselves of how perfectly that idea should be executed.”

Brain crack ideas are those ideas we all have that we’re sure are beyond our current capabilities. So we put them off, deluding ourselves with the notion that if we do it later, surely we’ll have better experience and resources to complete that wonderful idea. In our minds, they grow in size the longer they exist. In the meantime, no experience is gained. No resources are acquired. Those things only come when we throw our ideas out into the world, like a mother bird forcing her babies to fly or plummet to their death.

It’s taken me a long time to realize, but the vast majority of my problems in life stem from a severe addiction to brain crack.

I’m a perfectionist; I don’t like to give up and say I’m done until I feel something is the best it could possibly be. This has afflicted every aspect of my life: videos, screenplays, articles, drawings, Christmas presents and cleaning. It’s even the root source of why I had such a hard time, in high school, turning in incomplete math assignments. My perfectionistic need to do something right or not at all surmounted the logic that some credit would have been better than no credit at all.

I’ve made slow progress over the years. I’ve learned to disappoint myself, grudgingly declaring something complete that I believe is flawed. Inevitably, whatever it is recieves high praise from many sources, but I can never really convince myself to accept that at face value. There’s always something wrong with it, something I wish I could have fixed. Something that I tell myself I’ll go back and fix…someday. When I can do it “right”.

BEDA, then, is exactly what I need to break myself of brain crack. A daily opportunity to flex my idea muscles. A blog a day to keep the brain crack away. So I’m going to give this my best shot.

I’m going to post one written blog and one video every day during the month of April. I’m not going to let it interfere with the things I have to do. The posts may not be long. The videos may not be perfect. I may not make it the whole month.

But I’ll have tried. And, in doing so, I’ll have told that perfectionist brain crack addict living inside me that it’s time for him to go. It’s time to experiment, time to make mistakes…time to just get out there and try, perfection be damned.

It’s time to be a fool.