Back to School with Punkle Henry (Rollins) features Henry Rollins giving some incredible advice on how to navigate life and stay true to yourself. Put together by BigThink, the transcript is below:

Young person, you’ll find in your life that sometimes your great ambitions will be momentarily stymied, thwarted, marginalized by those who were perhaps luckier, come from money, where more doors opened, where college was a given–it was not a student loan; it was something that Dad paid for–to where an ease and confidence in life was almost a birthright, where for you it was a very hard climb.

You cannot let these people make you feel that you have in any way been dwarfed or out-classed. You must really go for your own and realize how short life is. You got what you got, so you have to make the most of it. You really can’t spend a whole lot of time worrying about his. You really have to go for your own. If you have an idea of what you want to do in your future, you must go at it with almost monastic obsession, be it music, the ballet or just a basic degree. You have to go at it single-mindedly and let nothing get in your way. You’re young. That’s why you can survive on no sleep, Top Ramen noodles and dental floss and still look good.

All the people you admire, from Mohamed Ali to any politician, they work and work and work. Your president right now is a man who got where he is through very hard work and scholarships, mainly hard work and application and discipline. If these people can do it, why not you?

We live in very interesting times and, as a young person going into a very turbulent and fragile economy that is going to get better–it’s going to take awhile–, it is easy to lose your moral compass, your decency, your sense of civility and your sense of community. Very easy. You known, things in traffic make you mad. People are getting a little desperate. They might not show their best elements to you. You must never lower yourself to being a person you don’t like.

There is no better time than now to have a moral and civic backbone, to have a moral and civic true north. This is a tremendous opportunity for you, a young person, to be heroic, to be morally upstanding, to be helpful, almost Boy Scout-like, presidential, to be altruistic.

Weakness is what brings ignorance, cheapness, racism, homophobia, desperation, cruelty, brutality, all these things that will keep a society chained to the ground, one foot nailed to the floor. It’s by being strong in the face of all of that, not lowering yourself to it, that’s how you lead. That’s how you liberate others and maintain freedom. You don’t have to beat your chest. You don’t have to wave a flag, but to maintain a high level of decency

And it sounds like I’m a cranky old man, like something you want to rebel against, but really think about what I’m saying. I think I’m right about this. When you look at what real desperation and ignorance looks like, when you have to run from it, like, literally run from it, you don’t want to be that. You want to be that which leads others out of that.

And now more than ever is the time to show these great qualities, to extol these great qualities and to embody these great qualities, which you have. Now it’s time to magnify them, personify them and inspire others with them. And there’s never been a time where they’re needed more than right now.

(hat tip Elizabeth)

Experience Scootering with Mitch Baldry is nothing short of fantastic. Over the course of 139 seconds, this scooter trick video alternates between surprisingly thrilling and quietly meditative (especially in those moments where they drop the soundtrack). Starring Mitch Baldry and put together by Infinity List, here’s a list of the tricks that Mitch does:

0:15 360 Buttercup
0:18 720
0:25 Flair Tailwhip
0:30 Hang 5
0:40 Frontflip no hander
0:57 Backflip no hander to fakie
1:07 Bri whip
1:25 Quad tailwhip
1:30 Front lipslide
1:33 Superman
1:50 Backflip 180
1:56 Nose Manual
2:00 Heelwhip rewind double whip

(via Infinity List)

Voices is a Nike commercial highlighting just how much female athletes are constantly bombarded by naysayers and xenophobes. Directed by Mark Romanek, one of my all-time favorite music video directors, if you’re starting a business, playing sports or undertaking any major uphill endeavor, ignoring all the defeatists is a great way to move forward.

The Tale of the Three Brothers is an incredible animation from the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Directed by Ben Hibon (the director behind the excellent Codehunters) it’s the story of three brothers who are each granted a wish from Death, with potentially perilous consequences.

How Simple Ideas Lead to Scientific Discoveries is an animated lecture by Adam Savage about the awesome power of curiosity and how, with a bit of ingenuity, incredibly complex questions can be easily answered. Focusing on Eratosthenes’ calculation of the Earth’s circumference around 200 BC and Hippolyte Fizeau’s measurement of the speed of light in 1849, this TED-Ed video is like a pure shot of adrenaline for the mind.

If you dig this, you should check out TED-Ed’s One is one … or is it?, Just How Small is an Atom? and The Power of Simple Words.

Flight of Passage: – A Relentless Short Story is a short narrated by Beta Band frontman Steve Mason featuring skateboarder Ben Nordberg. Directed by James Gardner, this short is slightly magical because of how seamlessly the story of Steve’s rise and Ben’s ultra-relaxed skate style weave together to highlight how perseverance, persistence and dedication are fundamental to success.

What is Storyline? is an animation that looks at the surprising amount of coincidence between crafting a good story and living a fulfilling life. Put together for Storyline by Epipheo Studios (the minds behind the gruesomely delightful How to Survive a Robot Uprising), the short presents excellent insight and narrative principals to change your life from something worth skimming into something worth living.

Absolutely everything about Kilian Martin’s skateboarding is magic. Filmed in Barcelona and Lloret de Mar, Spain, Kilian Martin: A Skate Regeneration was directed by Brett Novak. If you enjoyed this, you should definitely watch Kilian Martin’s Man About Town and A Skate Illustration.

(via infinitylist.com)

The official video for OK Go’s Skyscrapers is an actual Roy G Biv rainbow of tantalizing tango. The video features the dashingly-dressed duo Moti Buchboot and Trish Sie, who gets double extra awesome points for directing this visual delight.

(hat tip Danny)

Pincel de Zorro is a beautifully illustrated tale by Sergio A. Sierra, the author, and Meritxell Ribas, the illustrator. This fantastic animated trailer for the book was put together by their friend Hug Codinach. From start to finish, every aspect of this project appears to be overflowing with loving craftsmanship.