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meaning of life

concept · in 89 videos (2007–2026)

The question of the purpose of human existence, which John answers with other people, relationships and communities. He sees meaning as possibly constructed rather than inherent, yet no less real, and Hank finds no mattering outside our minds. Facing inevitable oblivion, John chooses love and durable hope over nihilism.

Videos by year: 2007: 1 · 2009: 2 · 2010: 2 · 2011: 8 · 2012: 4 · 2013: 1 · 2014: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2016: 2 · 2017: 9 · 2018: 5 · 2019: 11 · 2020: 3 · 2021: 5 · 2022: 7 · 2023: 7 · 2024: 5 · 2025: 7 · 2026: 7

Also known as: the secret of life, does human life have real meaning, what is the point, what matters

Also named in the threads: Question Tuesday: weekly Tuesday question days for nerdfighters (2007) · Hank's 'you just lost The Game' bit (2010) · The Fault in Our Stars: writing, title and publication (2011) · Hank's Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis and chemotherapy (2023)

Questions

Often together

What comes up in the same parts of the videos; the number is how many parts.

hope (7) · Earth (6) · Hollywood, Ending (3) · Julie Strauss-Gabel (2) · Looking for Alaska (novel) (5) · empathy (2) · An Abundance of Katherines (2) · Henry Green (3) · Indianapolis (3) · Canada (2)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2007

2009

  • 2009-05-04 (said on 2009-05-03, implied) · Oinkbarf Pandemic! An Intellectual Response to Swine Flu — John suspects pandemic fear goes deeper: pandemics make us think that everyone will die and that one day no humans will be left to remember there were humans. (hedged) — 00:02:21
    • John thinks pandemics make us afraid not of death but of oblivion, forcing us to grapple with the futility of effort. (hedged) — 00:03:02
    • John tells Hank and Nerdfighters to wash their hands, cover their coughs, and balance the futility of effort with the necessity to struggle; he will keep struggling. — 00:03:09

Also named in: It All Makes Sense at the End

2010

  • 2010-04-19 · I Shall BLOW YOUR MIND — Hank says the universe is big, but he thinks we have an important place in it. (hedged) — 00:02:35
    • Hank thinks understanding the scope of the universe, the act of understanding itself, is more important than the existence of all the star stuff in it. (hedged) — 00:02:35
  • 2010-06-21 · You're Gonna Die — John tells Hank they and everyone they love will die, and one day no one will remember the books, World Cups, proofs or in-your-pants jokes, as if they never happened. — 00:00:00
    • Some think talking about death and the temporariness of human experience is pessimistic or nihilistic, but John found Hank's Friday video on games, losing and non-attachment quite optimistic. — 00:00:52
    • Restating Hank, John says we don't choose whether we lose the games we play, but we choose which games; we can't choose whether to care, only what to care about. — 00:01:04
    • When he cares about a game, John asks whether it helps people here now, honors those who came before, and paves the way for those who come after. — 00:01:18
    • John says all this is temporary, but we have a say in how temporary it is. — 00:01:29
    • Hank's video didn't change John's mind about watching the World Cup, but made him think about why he cares about soccer and reminded him caring is a choice; he is grateful. — 00:02:07

2011

  • 2011-03-09 · DANDY LIONS! It's Question Day — announcement: John says the novel is about two teenage cancer survivors obsessed with a reclusive novelist, and also about Swedish hip-hop and the meaning of life. — 00:00:57
  • 2011-05-11 · 1990's Sim Games. SO GOOD! — Hank: What Hank loves most is that these games often have no winning and no goal; you can't beat SimCity, just as in life we don't know what we're supposed to do. — 00:03:05
    • Hank says knowing he gets to decide for himself what success is was one of the most important lessons he ever learned, and he learned it from simulation games. — 00:03:31
  • 2011-06-20 · On Religion — John submits that almost all human lives are lived in functional nihilism: very few believe life is meaningless, but almost all act as if they did. — 00:00:29
    • Christians, Muslims and atheists alike share this worldview: almost none would give up comforts to help others, so judged by actions humans look like nihilists. — 00:01:16
  • 2011-08-17 · Hank's Question Tuesday DEBUT! — John says he feels for the questioner because he has struggled with that question a lot, and wrote The Fault in Our Stars about it. — 00:02:47
  • 2011-08-22 (said on 2011-08-23, implied) · Thoughts from a Butterfly Hatch — Hank: Some days it seems to Hank that the purpose of life is to convert energy into beauty; he knows it is not rationally true, but says that is sometimes okay. (hedged) — 00:03:22
  • 2011-09-12 · Adorable Baby and Insufficient Cartography — John tells Hank that one of the points of being alive is that we get to pay attention: to both participate in and observe a universe at once stunningly elegant and completely heartless. — 00:00:41
  • 2011-09-23 · The Improbability of Place - Thoughts from the San Juans — Hank says the world did not conspire to make this place; likewise Laurie is not objectively a miracle, what is miraculous is the love between her and what remains of Jon Osterman in Dr. Manhattan. — 00:02:26
    • Hank argues creation is miraculous only through how we fit into it: what makes a place, and each of us, wonderful is our relationships with the world, land, animals, each other and ourselves, not improbability. — 00:02:55
  • 2011-10-07 · Steve Jobs and a Song — Hank says the song is about not being special, which is not only really normal but also really necessary and really wonderful. — 00:02:23
    • Hank suggests the goal may be for the world to be less good without us at the end of our lives; if so, maybe we don't have to be special to be like Steve Jobs, just good. (hedged) — 00:03:34
  • …and 6 statements more in 2011 — all statements of 2011

2012

  • 2012-02-21 · Life is Weird. Also beautiful. — John says professional lives, with turns you can never imagine (lawyer to librarian, minister to vlogger), are important but not what life is about: human life is really about relationships and communities. — 00:02:35
  • 2012-06-05 · The Dangling Rope of Terror: It's Question Tuesday — John: Asked the meaning of life, John answers in one word: helping. — 00:01:58
  • 2012-07-10 · Feeling More Alive: Fahrenheit 451's The Hearth and the Salamander — John reframes the question as when we feel least like we are wasting our lives; nature doesn't make him feel alive, but conversations with family and friends about things that matter do. — 00:03:53
  • 2012-08-03 · I Don't Understand My Life — Hank: Though often literally and figuratively on a stage, what matters most to Hank is how much he loves people and how much the people he loves love him. — 00:01:23
    • To the 93 people who upvoted the comment and others who feel that way: the value you bring to the world comes largely from what you love and who loves you. — 00:02:52

2013

  • 2013-01-15 · An Evening of Awesome at Carnegie Hall — John says he has always been obsessed with the meaning of his life: happy when he felt part of a plan (Hogwarts letter, Jedi), sad when not. — 00:47:39
    • John says he concluded the universe isn't interested in us as individuals, or acts as if it isn't, so his question became whether meaning in human life is inherent or constructed. — 00:51:38
    • John says he may have concluded he doesn't care whether meaning is constructed or inherent, only what we find, and most meaning in his life came through collaboration. (hedged) — 00:56:04

2014

2015

  • 2015-02-06 · You Will Be Forgotten ...And That's OK — Hank says that, as John keeps driving home, oblivion is inevitable and no one will be left to remember anything, so being remembered forever is not a good goal because it is not achievable. — 00:00:57

Also named in: SUIT UP! A Very Fancy Reunion Video (Pizzamas Day 8)

2016

  • 2016-02-19 · Thanks, Lemon — Hank: Lemon was just another dog, yet Hank thought her important and she left a hole in his heart: nothing matters but to each other, and Lemon mattered to him. — 00:02:19
  • 2016-06-03 · Redefining What it Means to Matter — Hank says what people crave besides stability is meaning, and thinks it is getting harder and harder to find. (hedged) — 00:00:16
    • Hank says that in the end we matter because we make life better for people around us and for people in the future. — 00:03:19

2017

2018

2019

  • 2019-01-29 · Do You Believe in Miracles? — John: Watching in a basement in Indianapolis, John found himself in tears, grateful to the club that had again shown him the meaning of life. — 00:02:54
  • 2019-02-19 · Battling Apathy and Searching for Meaning on Question Tuesday — John thinks the meaning of life differs between people and times; for him right now it is to use the gift of human consciousness to pay attention. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-02-26 · The Necessity to Struggle / The Futility of Effort — John thinks both worldviews are correct: human life is beautiful, and we are all going to die and much of what we cared about will be rendered irrelevant by time. — 00:02:26
    • John says maybe nothing will matter in the grand scheme of things, but we don't live there: we live in the day-to-day, at gate A7 on a Wednesday afternoon. — 00:02:55
  • 2019-04-23 · untitled — John: In one reply John wrote that the meaning of life is basically bearing witness to creation and its inhabitants: a nice sentiment, he says, but irrelevant to calling a non-sequel 'The Sequel'. — 00:01:56
  • 2019-05-17 · Keanu. — Hank suggests that what happens to us when we die may matter less than what happens to everybody else, and turning such thoughts outward could help many parts of our lives. (hedged) — 00:02:54
  • 2019-07-02 · On Sunlight — John says he is inconsequential, a footnote to a footnote, yet it is wondrous to be here, to witness the sunset and know we are not just in the universe but of it. — 00:03:30
  • 2019-07-23 · What to Love and How — John: Raising the cup like Jordan Henderson, John felt gratitude for the many usses that loved him into life; he often wonders what the point is, but then knew: the point is to gather. — 00:03:23
  • 2019-09-03 · Death, Love, and John's Religion: The Big Questions Take Over Question Tuesday — John is excited by questions of what meaning we can find together, whether it holds up to scrutiny, embraces the humanity of all people and lifts up the most vulnerable. — 00:00:29
  • 2019-10-08 · Looking for Alaska (...with Alaska) — a guest: Borrowing her mother's words, a guest says the meaning of life is to be happy. — 00:02:26
  • 2019-12-10 · On Loneliness — John: When really lonely, John feels his consciousness serves no shared or greater purpose, and his life seems to circle its own misery like a vulture over a carcass. — 00:01:43
    • Not only offline communities run deep, as this weekend reminded him: though very introverted, John finds meaning in communities bigger than him that value and include him. — 00:03:21
  • …and 4 statements more in 2019 — all statements of 2019

2020

  • 2020-09-22 · the world is gonna roll me — John says the idea that terrified Melville, that the heartless universe doesn't care about us, comforts Oliver's speaker, and he is team Oliver. — 00:01:21
  • 2020-10-12 · What Matters — Hank: Humans need to believe they matter, so Hank hesitates to call these things subjective, but they are: for him there is no mattering outside our minds, only the story we find most compelling. — 00:02:27

2021

  • 2021-01-26 · The Sycamore Tree: The Anthropocene Reviewed — In a comment John concludes that we are here to make shade for ourselves and those we love, and to pay attention to sycamore trees. — creator comment
    • At the end of the Why chain John says that, in spite of it all, he believes the human enterprise has value. (hedged) — 00:00:39
    • In the game John's brain says there is no point to the human endeavor: no permanent legacy, and our lasting contribution is being the first species able to muck up the planet. — 00:02:06
    • Looking up at the tree that turned dirt, water and sunshine into a place where squirrels play, you realize you are in its vast shade, and John says that's the point. — 00:09:24
  • 2021-05-25 · The Anthropocene Reviewed, Animated — John: When feeling rises, John wants to deflect with irony; we all know how loving ends, but he wants to fall in love with the world anyway, let it crack him open and feel what there is to feel. — 00:14:50
  • 2021-06-22 · Mindblowers with Hank and John — John says being on an infinitely tiny speck gives a feeling of wonderful smallness that is not sad, while the chance there might have been no matter makes him feel quite something. — 00:03:40
  • 2021-07-27 · Savoring: The Sunset Series Returns — John: We go on because life is beautiful; it is also awful, painful and unjust, but none of that negates its beauty or the gifts of savoring it. — 00:02:31
  • 2021-10-06 · Searching for Betsy in Brazil — John: As a teenager John objected that life is joy, love, loss, yearning, pain and hunger; he still thinks life is those things, but it is also farting around. — 00:02:03

2022

  • 2022-01-21 · How to Be Hopeful About Doomsday — Hank: Humans are the universe talking to itself about itself; we are so worried because this is really wonderful, so we are protecting something great. — 00:01:25
  • 2022-03-01 (said on 2022-02-27, implied) · Hard Week — John: Though we, everyone we love and eventually all humans will die, John says that makes our love, solidarity and work for a shared better future more beautiful and wondrous. — 00:01:57
  • 2022-07-15 · Thoughts From the Universe - Woah — Hank: Such images make people ask why anything on Earth matters; Hank says there are really good human answers: we give our universe meaning, and we matter to each other. — 00:00:00
    • Hank says there may also be some kind of objective answers to whether we matter. (hedged) — 00:00:00
    • Hank says feeling insignificant is not saying nothing matters but an instinct that mattering is spread across a basically infinite universe, so we, being too small, don't matter. — 00:00:48
    • Hank says being part of the universe waking up feels very big. — 00:03:37
  • 2022-07-19 · Why Do Things Exist? — John: We are made of the universe, participants in it rather than observers; that is why Orin's question is beautiful: he is the universe trying to understand itself. — 00:03:24
  • 2022-08-09 · How to Cook Beans and Resist Dread — John reflects that maybe this is the point: being a fleshy worm with consciousness can feel like a lot, but it also lets him share food he worked on with people who love him. (hedged) — 00:03:44
  • 2022-09-20 · Against Nihilism — John rejects nihilism, because like all straightforward answers to life's great questions it is inadequate, and because he thinks human life itself is imbued with meaning. — 00:00:29
    • None of this matters in the grand scheme of things, as the sun will become a red giant, but we don't live there; John thinks there is meaning in us and in how we are bound together. — 00:01:56
    • John thinks the opportunity and responsibility of personhood is to make meaning and acknowledge it in others' lives, through loving, helping, being helped and deepening shared understanding. — 00:03:20
    • John concludes that maybe nothing matters, but only until we make things matter, and maybe life is meaningless, but only until we make it meaningful. — 00:03:49

2023

  • 2023-03-14 · The Seduction of Despair — John rejects the idea that the mere boiling of the oceans negates our shared work, since it implies others' lives are meaningless just because they are temporary. — 00:02:00
  • 2023-04-18 · goodbye to my friend — John says the heartbreak and hope of human life is that everything goes except the love we pour into others and into the world. — 00:03:38
  • 2023-05-09 · on hope — John says by hope he means needing to believe consciousness is worth it: biological awareness, despite its misery, consternation and pain, is nonetheless valuable. — 00:00:42
  • 2023-10-02 · The Hottest Place and the Coldest Place in the Universe are the SAME PLACE — Hank says that sometimes humans seem clearly insignificant on the scale of the cosmos and sometimes nothing seems more significant, and he is really not sure which it is. (unsure) — 00:05:31
  • 2023-10-03 · Nourished by Leaving — John says we and most species around us are new, but life is very old, and he finds that a little comforting. — 00:01:17
  • 2023-12-22 · Let's Talk About Death — Hank: Before getting sick Hank thought he had a good grasp on what life was for, but once close to the edge he was amazed how quickly he lost it. — 00:00:54
    • Hank says even endless postponement would not help him find meaning in a universe that, to his eye, has no objective meaning or will not share it. — 00:01:53

2024

  • 2024-01-09 · Views — John: For John the wonder is in every footfall and pine tree: it is astonishing to be at all, and a wonder that we get to be here for a while. — 00:03:20
  • 2024-06-04 · how it all ends — John doesn't know why we are here, but says it is certainly not to leave a permanent mark, which would only be engulfed by our star. — 00:03:53
    • John suggests maybe that is why we're here: to ease present suffering, solve problems for each other and for those who inherit the earth, and above all to live in brief wonder. (hedged) — 00:04:22
  • 2024-06-25 · taking a break — John says no simple story can ever be true, and there is no simpler story than that nothing means anything. — 00:03:05
  • 2024-08-06 · What Helped Through Depression — John: Asked his core belief about humans, John says we are here to love and be loved, and that is the one thing we all deserve. — 00:02:26
  • 2024-10-02 · What I learned from the weirdest day of my life — Hank says something sets some of these goals apart, which John hit on at the end of his video: something that answers the question of what exactly the point is. — 00:01:56
    • Hank concludes that as long as you help solve problems for yourself and others, you never have to ask what the point is, because that is the point. — 00:05:21

2025

  • 2025-03-04 · The ANXIETY IS PALPABLE — John says that in the long run nothing matters, but he does not live in the long run; he lives now. — 00:03:05
    • John says it sucks to watch humanity step back from one of the main points of being here: creating safety and security for each other, with access to healthcare and education. — 00:03:12
  • 2025-06-06 · The Secret Inside my MIT Commencement Speech — Hank says value and meaning come from people, not banks, tech or cap tables; people work is hardest but often most important, so orient toward people's needs, including your own. — 00:18:07
  • 2025-07-11 · The Ones Who Love Us — Hank: What goes on after we die is everything we love: not just the people who love us, who will also die and we will be forgotten, but the whole thing we are part of. — 00:02:41
  • 2025-07-22 · At Least There Are Trees — John says sitting under a ginkgo reminds him humans are a blip in the story of life, but what a blip: the only species that ever tried to name the ginkgo. — 00:04:22
  • 2025-10-09 · I Like Being Alive — John says he spends much time wondering where meaning in life comes from: a higher source or construction with friends, doing good and easing suffering, loving and being loved, understanding, or preparing for the world to come. — 00:01:27
    • John suggests that one answer, which first occurred to him yesterday, is that he should do what makes him like being alive. (hedged) — 00:01:59
  • 2025-11-11 · John's Annual Psychophysical Decline — John says a world where nothing matters and helping cannot improve anything would be depressing but convenient, since he could stay in bed; instead there is work to do. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • 2025-12-02 · The Meaning of Life with Hank and John — John says this Question Tuesday has only one question, the meaning of life, which in 19 years of Vlogbrothers they have never directly addressed. — 00:00:00
    • John says he thinks the meaning of life is to be in relationship with other people and to pay attention. — 00:01:58
    • Hank says that if one thing is better than another, there is meaning there, in embracing the human story and being part of the fabric of life; that feels objective enough to him. — 00:04:22
    • John says what we do with our attention is what we do with our lives, so attention is really meaningful; that is the first thing they agree on. — 00:06:31
  • …and 1 statement more in 2025 — all statements of 2025

2026

  • 2026-01-06 · Hope Is Not a Feeling — John rejects the view that serious people embrace nihilism: nihilism is the easy choice, because then nothing you do matters, while durable hope is harder and more nuanced. — 00:02:55
  • 2026-04-10 · Moon Joy — Hank says his longing for the moon's peace is itself a want, and everything that makes anything matter exists because something alive wanted. — 00:01:29
    • Hank says the moon would be nothing without us: like its light, all the meaning it has is our meaning bouncing off it and reflecting back. — 00:03:52
    • Hank closes that life does something nothing else in the universe can: it makes things matter. — 00:04:15
  • 2026-06-05 · The Things We Don't Discuss — Hank suggests that maybe humans are the ones who define what matters and which problems get solved, as the source of the universe having meaning. (hedged) — 00:10:56
    • John says he likes the idea that humans are the source of the universe having meaning. — 00:11:21
  • 2026-07-21 · One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy — John concludes that the universe may be indifferent to us but we are not indifferent to each other; nothing matters in the end, but we don't live in the end, so our work matters in tiny ways. — 00:04:23
  • 2026-07-24 · One Must Imagine Sisyphus Important — Hank's point: importance is important; a universe without sensation would be very cool, but not this cool. — 00:02:55
  • 2026-09-30 · The Point of Life — John: Prompted by Hank's video yesterday, John says that as he has gotten older he has started to think the meaning of life may be to commit to bits. (hedged) — 00:00:40
    • The further John has fallen down the tuberculosis rabbit hole over seven years, the more fulfilling it is: TB fighting gives him meaning and connections to TB fighters worldwide, a sense of community. — 00:01:40
    • John thinks the point of life is to commit to deep relationships, community, making art and easing each other's burdens: it is in the commitment that we find the meaning. — 00:03:46
  • 2026-10-23 · The Best Email I Ever Got — Hank says people are where each other's meaning comes from, not statuettes. — 00:06:06
  • …and 2 statements more in 2026 — all statements of 2026