If there’s anyone who has made full use of his or her 42 years on the planet, it’s Henry Rollins. With an astounding resume that includes more than 11 films, two television shows, six VHS and DVD releases, 12 books and 31 CDs in three genres, it is impossible to deny the dedication Rollins has to his work.

It also seems impossible to imagine how one person can juggle speaking, writing, making music and acting all at once. Many people spend their entire lives working toward only one of those ends. What makes Rollins so resilient?

“I like to work; I do one thing after another. In that, it’s all the same,” Rollins told The Badger Herald via e-mail.

Henry Rollins was born Feb. 13, 1961 in Washington D.C., where he lived until moving to Los Angeles in 1981 to join the legendary punk band Black Flag. It was during his Black Flag years that, according to Rollins, he began to be interested in writing.

“I took an interest in writing for two reasons. The first was that there was a lot of interesting things happening out there on the road and I wanted to document them and my thoughts, and [the second] was that I was very inspired by Henry Miller … His passion for life hit me hard. I got the feeling that he would have liked what we were doing very much,” he said in a press release.

Rollins put some of his thoughts together in a pamphlet and made up a company, which he called 2-13-61 Publications, to release it. Before long, the impromptu company had sold over 1,000 copies of the pamphlet, prompting Rollins to release it in paperback form.

“It went on from there, and 14 years or so later, we have an office and several writers on the label,” he said.

This quick and unexpected success has prompted many young writers to seek Rollins’ advice on getting published. His response? “I always tell them one of two things. Either do it yourselves or sleep with the publisher. I do both, thus bettering my chances of staying in print.”

On the music side of the spectrum, Rollins began his career when he jumped onstage at a Black Flag show in New York. He was soon invited to join the band and relocated to Los Angeles, where the group put together its first full-length album, Damaged, in 1981.

Black Flag’s label, Unicorn, refused to put out the album, so band members instead put it out on the independent label owned by guitarist Gregory Ginn. What followed was several years of lawsuits, resulting in the band being unable to use the name Black Flag, until Unicorn went bankrupt in 1983 and surrendered the rights to the name back to the band.

After the breakup of Black Flag in 1986, Rollins formed Rollins Band and continued touring and recording. Rollins Band seemed to have become his main musical focus, but Black Flag fans got a hopeful surprise in 2002, when Rollins released “Rise Above,” an album of Black Flag covers put together to benefit the West Memphis Three.

The Three are Damien Echols, Jessie Miskelley and Jason Davis, who currently have sentences ranging from life in prison to the death penalty pending for their supposed involvement in the murder of several young boys almost 10 years ago. Since their conviction, support has been rallied around the world for the overturning of their sentences due to glaring inconsistencies and an overall lack of evidence.

It seems odd that Rollins would choose to cover Black Flag songs for the CD rather than Rollins Band or spoken word work. “I knew that it would generate more interest than anything else I could do,” Rollins said. “We made a good record that’s selling well and hopefully getting people aware of the case. We’re getting a huge response, more than we ever thought.”

Rollins began his spoken-word career in the mid-’80s and released his first spoken-word album, Big Ugly Mouth, in 1987. Seemingly quite a change from the young, angry punk of the Black Flag years, spoken word seems to give Rollins a chance to express his more personal side.

In 1991, Rollins encountered a turning point in his spoken-word career, as he was deeply affected by the death of his best friend Joe Cole. Cole was fatally shot in the head after he and Rollins were held up at gunpoint outside Rollins’ home.

In 1992, Rollins began releasing albums on 2-13-61 Publications, allowing him the freedom to publish his own work and the flexibility to record at his convenience. Rollins Band also continued to increase in popularity during the ’90s, gaining its first charting album with The End of Silence in 1992.

Rollins Band broke up in 1998, after being juggled to several record labels and becoming increasingly experimental. Since then, Rollins has been focusing on advancing his spoken-word career.

“I enjoy being onstage without a band, telling stories and railing off the top of my head. To me it’s like being in a jazz band without the band. It’s like a long version of ‘A Night in Tunisia,'” he said.

Rollins made his movie debut in 1994’s “The Chase,” and has since appeared in the likes of “Johnny Mnemonic,” “Lost Highway” and, most recently, “Jackass: The Movie,” in which he drove a jeep through a bumpy desert track while a Jackass cast member received a tattoo in the backseat.

“They were O.K. guys,” Rollins said of working with the Jackass cast members.

There seems to be no chance that Rollins will ever run out of things to say. According to Rollins, “I write all kinds of things but for only one reason: To get what’s in me out of me. … I just try to externalize the internal.”

With the ever-expanding list of possibilities Henry Rollins has before him, it isn’t too surprising that he has no specific plans for the future.

” I have shows all year. That’s all the plans I have for the future,” he said.

Perhaps the most intriguing question for someone who has been in so many different positions is what the Henry Rollins of 1982 would think of the Henry Rollins of today.

“I don’t know what they would think of each other,” he said. “I guess you are asking me how I have changed. There’s nothing like 20 years of living to make an answer [to that question] fairly impossible.”