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the world is gonna roll me

2020-09-22 · letter vlog · John · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature (also: Philosophy & meaning, Personal life) · mode: Personal essay · tags: on location, community lore, civic or action cta

Feeling tossed by forces beyond his control, John walks outside on the first day of autumn and contrasts Melville's terror at nature's indifference with Mary Oliver's comfort in it; siding with Oliver, he argues that nature is not truly indifferent to us because we are nature, utterly interdependent with the oceans and each other, and hopes that knowledge carries us through isolation.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Feeling rolled by the world, John goes outside; autumn arriving slowly, with uncertainty and menace

  • ★★ John says he feels like a very small boat on high seas, tossed by forces so much larger than himself that he can't comprehend, let alone control, them. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ When that feeling crashes over him, John finds it helpful to go outside; on this first day of autumn the air is already crisp and smells of fallen leaves. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ John says autumn used to seem to arrive all at once, but now time is unfolding differently, and autumn has arrived slowly, with much more uncertainty and even menace. — 00:00:29

00:00:52 — Consolation outdoors: Mary Oliver's sea that has work to do versus Melville's demonic indifference; team Oliver

  • ★★ John finds a lot of consolation outside but isn't sure why; maybe because nature still proceeds apace while so much else doesn't. (hedged) — 00:00:52
  • ★★ John recalls a Mary Oliver poem in which the speaker tells the sea she is miserable and the sea replies, in its lovely voice, that it has work to do. — 00:00:52
  • ★★ John contrasts earlier views of nature's indifference, like Moby-Dick, where the white whale's demonic indifference shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe. — 00:01:21
  • ★★★ 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
  • ★★ Siding with Oliver, John says he is glad the world goes on orbiting the sun regardless of what he does, and that the Earth is not made for him but he is made for the Earth, and also of it. — 00:01:56

00:02:07 — Weather shapes well-being; we are nature, and the ocean is not indifferent to us; interdependence and work to do; sign-off

  • ★★ John used to roll his eyes at old novels where characters' moods follow the weather, but now sees it wasn't just metaphor: closeness to the outside world shapes well-being. — 00:02:07
  • ★ John adds that the same is true of the internet, though you bring yourself to the weather as to everything else. — 00:02:07
  • ★★★ John says we don't exist independently of weather, world or history, which is where the idea of nature's indifference breaks down for him: we are nature. — 00:02:07
  • ★★★ John says we need not be indifferent toward ourselves, one another, or life more generally. — 00:02:54
  • ★★★ John says the ocean is not indifferent to us: we move it with seawalls and land reclamation and change its size and biodiversity by our choices, and it moves us. — 00:02:54

  • ★★★ John says we depend on the oceans and they on us: humans are wildly, utterly dependent, and, as Oliver's sea says, we have work to do. — 00:03:23

    “Humans are nothing if not wildly, utterly dependent.”

  • ★★ John hopes knowledge of our interdependence holds fast in physical isolation, and that the work of getting each other through keeps us warm in the cold months ahead. — 00:03:23

  • ★ John says this video contains a clue, just like all his recent videos do. — 00:03:51

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says the video contains a clue leading to a secret livestream and invites viewers to solve it with friends at Tuataria, the nerdfighter subreddit or other nerdfighter communities. — video description · Reddit
  • ★ In a channel comment John says he never gets the codes alone either; they are designed to be almost impossible to solve alone, to foster collaboration. — creator comment
  • ★★ In a channel comment John says Teasdale misses the point: humans are a catastrophe for much life, but also the most interesting thing that ever happened to Earth. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: absurdism · Mary Oliver

Also: Anthropocene · Biodiversity · Herman Melville · I Go Down to the Shore · Moby-Dick · pathetic fallacy

Only in the description or credits: Reddit · Sara Teasdale · Tuataria

Also centred on absurdism: One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy

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