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On Hope and Chile

2010-10-13 · John · watch on YouTube · World affairs · reflection essay

While watching the Chilean miners' rescue, John reports on the Beckoning of Lovely and Nerdfighter tattoos, offers a playlist of It Gets Better videos instead of making one, and argues that in a broken world humans are right to hold on to hope.

What is said

00:00:00 — Watching a Chilean miner reach the surface; crying all day; a child of the brothers's puzzled look; Chile's president makes John cry

  • ★★ John interrupts his greeting as a Chilean miner comes to the surface safe; he has been crying all day, like everyone watching. — 00:00:03
  • ★ John's son looks at him all day with his head tilted, as if asking whether he needs a diaper change or a nap (John voices the baby). (playful) — 00:00:12
  • ★★ John doesn't know whether Chile's president is good at being president, but says he is good at making John cry. (playful) (hedged) — 00:00:38

00:00:46 — Happy dance in the basement and Nerdfighters' happy dance at the Bean; the Beckoning of Lovely; Nerdfighters with DFTBA tattoos

  • ★★ John does his happy dance in his basement because he was too socially awkward to do it in front of hundreds of Nerdfighters at the Bean in Chicago, and shows theirs. (playful) — 00:00:47 · Happy dance, Nerdfighteria, Chicago
  • ★★★ John says the Beckoning of Lovely was crazy beautiful, with about a thousand people coming together with Amy Krouse Rosenthal to welcome everything lovely into the world. — 00:00:58 · Amy Krouse Rosenthal
  • ★★ John met many Nerdfighters, several of whom have permanent reminders not to forget to be awesome on their bodies. — 00:01:05 · Nerdfighteria, DFTBA

00:01:12 — The relationship formula from his novel, written by Daniel Biss, tattooed on a reader's arm

00:01:47 — Why the brothers haven't made an It Gets Better video; John's playlist of It Gets Better videos instead

  • ★★★ Asked why the brothers haven't made an It Gets Better video, John says others have said what he would say better, so he made a playlist of such videos instead. (hedged) — 00:01:47
  • ★★ John asks viewers to check out the playlist in the doobly-doo, even if they aren't wondering whether it gets better, which it does. — 00:02:03 · doobly-doo

00:02:10 — A broken world, but we're right to hold on to hope: the miners' 17 days; hope gives us a chance; sign-off

  • ★★★ John: we live in an irreparably broken world, but the amazing thing is not that humans refuse to give up hope; it is that we are right to hold on to it. — 00:02:10 > «The world may be broken, but hope is not crazy.»
  • ★★ John says that for the first 17 days after the mine collapse the miners lived 2,000 feet underground on two days' worth of rations, not knowing anyone would come. — 00:02:23
  • ★★★ John: not all stories end happily, but hope gives us as a species and as individuals what we otherwise wouldn't have, a chance. — 00:02:32

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