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A Lovely Winter Walk

2021-02-16 · letter vlog · John · 3:42 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: Global development) · mode: Personal essay · tags: calendar ritual, fundraising ask, on location, heavy topic

Exhausted after the record-breaking 2021 Project for Awesome, John takes a snowy walk and reflects that this hard, isolating time will end like everything else, and that the P4A's real joy was being reminded of light-soaked moments and of how well humans work together.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — P4A mustache and exhaustion; P4A 2021 raised over $2 million; thanks to participants and volunteers

  • ★★ John still has a mustache because of a Project for Awesome promise, and his voice is a little hoarse. — 00:00:03 · Project for Awesome
  • ★ John sends greetings from his basement, where the confetti is vast and the exhaustion profound, then goes for a walk. (playful) — 00:00:10
  • ★★★ The 2021 P4A livestream has just ended, having raised over $2 million for charity so far: by almost any metric the most successful P4A in its 15-year history. — 00:00:16 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★ John is grateful to everyone who took part: donating, making P4A videos, voting for charities, and the jokes and memes shared in chat. — 00:00:29 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★ Volunteers run the P4A, but it also relies on everyone watching, from hydration reminders to perk ideas about Hank's bean Furby, now apparently known as Beanie Sandfurbs. (playful) — 00:00:38 · Beanie Sanfurbs, Hank Green, Nerdfighteria, Project for Awesome

00:00:58 — The fundraiser is live until midnight Tuesday; last-second perks

  • ★★★ The P4A fundraiser stays live until midnight Eastern Tuesday, so John urges viewers to pick up last-second perks now. — 00:00:58 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★ John calls the digital download bundle for a $60 donation always the best P4A deal, with gifts arriving all year; perks also include the P4A shirt and commemorative coin. — 00:01:08 · Project for Awesome

00:01:27 — Living in the middle of history: a hard time that will end like everything else; spring comes out of nowhere

  • ★★ Stan Muller (quoted): Crash Course co-founder Stan Muller has told John that when you live in the middle of history, you never know exactly what it means. — 00:01:27 · Crash Course
  • ★★★ Living in this strange and extremely difficult time, John doesn't know what it means, how we will look back on it, or when. (unsure) — 00:01:35 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★ For the first time in John's life everyone knows what 'it' refers to; it is hard, a grind, isolating and exhausting, and also temporary. — 00:01:56 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★★ When John told his therapist he felt we'd never get out of this, she reminded him everything else has ended: a hope that isn't BS or Pollyanna-ish but real and verifiable. — 00:02:00 · hope
  • ★★ John says in an Anthropocene Reviewed episode that the light-soaked days are coming, and he really believes it. — 00:02:19 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast)
  • ★★ It's February, snow is on the ground and the trees look dead but aren't; Cummings wrote that spring comes carefully out of nowhere, and it always does, yet still surprises. — 00:02:26

00:03:01 — The P4A's real joy: light-soaked moments, connection and working together

  • ★★★ The P4A's great joy for John was not beating its fundraising goals or the bean Furby's celebrity, but being reminded that light-soaked days, or little moments of easing each other's way, are possible amid it all. — 00:03:01 · Project for Awesome, Beanie Sanfurbs
  • ★★★ John laughed, cried and felt connected again, reminded that humans are really good at being and working together, collaborating across time and space to do what none could alone. — 00:03:10 · collective action

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

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Mentioned

Central: hope · Project for Awesome

Also: Beanie Sanfurbs · collective action · COVID-19 pandemic · Crash Course · E. E. Cummings · Spring is like a perhaps hand · Stan Muller · The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast)

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