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Deserving

2014-05-20 · letter vlog · John · 3:38 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion

Prompted by Hank's video on the Renaissance and circumstance, John argues his TFiOS success is luck and privilege, not desert; believing we deserve our fortune breeds self-centred myopia, and since we are not our luck, gratitude and helping each other are the right response.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Home again: greeting the bookshelf, the Dutch Nerdfighter shoes and the probable mouse poop

00:00:09 — Reply to Hank's Renaissance video; reminder to read Behind the Beautiful Forevers by June 10

  • ★★ John liked Hank's video about the Renaissance and circumstance and has been thinking about luck and deserving, partly because he feels especially undeserving of the nice things happening to him now. (hedged) — 00:00:09
  • ★★ John reminds Nerdfighters to read Behind the Beautiful Forevers, which he is rereading for the Nerdfighter Book Club, by June 10th. — 00:00:12 · Nerdfighteria

00:00:16 — Luck and deserving: the TFiOS film, privilege, self-centred myopia, no one deserves the terrible things

  • ★★★ People congratulate John after seeing the TFiOS film, but he says all he did was get lucky: in the book's publication, its cover, the buyers of the film rights, and the cast, crew and director. — 00:00:27 · The Fault in Our Stars (film), The Fault in Our Stars
  • ★ John says he made no savvy decisions in the process; much better books have been made into terrible movies. — 00:00:41
  • ★★ The luck goes further back, John says: he is lucky to have Hank as brother and collaborator, and lucky that Hank's 2007 Harry Potter song gave them a whole new audience. — 00:00:50
  • ★★★ John says he happened to be born into a rich country, male and white in a culture that privileges maleness and whiteness, and writes in English, a massive advantage: YA writers in Latvian rarely find broad audiences. — 00:01:00
  • ★★★ The TFiOS film is not happening because John is a good person, he says; that is not the way the world works. — 00:01:13 · The Fault in Our Stars (film), just-world hypothesis
  • ★★★ Thinking your good fortune comes from working harder or from the universe preferring you creates a self-centred myopia: you stop working to lessen inequality or support marginalized voices and think the world is as it should be. — 00:01:18 · just-world hypothesis
  • ★★★ That belief is very bad for others but, John thinks, also bad for oneself: when unjust things happen, believing you deserved the good things implies you deserve the bad. (hedged) — 00:01:37
  • ★★★ John argues we don't deserve the terrible things either: Hank doesn't deserve ulcerative colitis, no one deserves chronic pain, dementia or poverty; deserving may not be the best way to imagine it. (hedged) — 00:01:53

00:02:08 — Crash Course Big History: a 10-episode series funded by a Gates grant

  • ★★★ Crash Course is about to teach a ten-episode Big History series, made possible by a grant from one of Bill Gates' organizations, charting the universe from the Big Bang to now. — 00:02:08 · Crash Course

00:02:20 — The Sun took 99.9% of the solar system; you are not your luck; working together and gratitude

  • ★★ Big History teaches, John says, that 99.9% of the matter in the solar system was sucked up by the Sun as it formed; everything else is the 0.1%. — 00:02:20

  • ★★★ Everything not burning inside the Sun is on the far edge of the good-fortune bell curve; to John it is not about deserving, because you are not your luck: whatever your circumstances, you are valuable and worthy of love. (hedged) — 00:02:37

    “you are not your luck”

  • ★★★ John's favourite thing about humans is that we can work together to improve each other's chances of healthy, productive lives, from cancer research to the Project for Awesome to kindness to a stranger; for him it is the only real path to gratitude. — 00:02:55 · Project for Awesome

  • ★★ Speaking, he acknowledges, from an extremely privileged position, John believes gratitude is the proper response to the astonishment of being alive and aware; he is grateful to Hank and all of Nerdfighteria. — 00:03:10 · Nerdfighteria

00:03:26 — Two book recommendations; going to find the mouse; sign-off

  • ★★ John recommends two books he really likes: Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour and The Great Greene Heist by Varian Johnson, both excellent. — 00:03:26

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: just-world hypothesis · meritocracy · social privilege · The Fault in Our Stars (film)

Also: Projects: Crash Course · Nerdfighter Book Club · Project for Awesome

Works: Accio Deathly Hallows · Behind the Beautiful Forevers · Everything Leads to You · The Fault in Our Stars · The Great Greene Heist

Concepts: English language · Latvian language · ulcerative colitis (concept)

Places: Atlantic Ocean · Jupiter · Sun (star)

Events: Renaissance

Only in the description or credits: Bill Gates · Nina LaCour · Varian Johnson

Also centred on meritocracy: Luck vs. Work vs. Skill vs. Privilege

Also centred on social privilege: Neck Beards and Fitness Challenges · Time for AWESOME · Started from the Bottom: Benjamin Franklin and Drake Compared · Should I Feel Guilty? · How I (barely) Passed 11th Grade English · ...Not My Proudest Moment

Replies to

  • continues · The Myth of Greatness — “I really liked your video about the Renaissance and circumstance”

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