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It's My Birthday. I Gave Myself This Video.

2021-08-24 · letter vlog · John · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Everyday life (also: Personal life, Books & writing) · mode: Personal essay · tags: calendar ritual, self promotion

For his 44th birthday John gives himself a three-part video: the possibly final Anthropocene Reviewed podcast episode, on Alexei Leonov's drawing from the first spacewalk; the Hank and John chatbot's guess that he will live a million years, prompting him to set 97 as his preferred lifespan; and a reflection that the adulthood he once feared as changeless turned out to be full of change.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Birthday parts video; part one: the maybe-final Anthropocene Reviewed podcast episode on Leonov's spacewalk drawing, and three months since the book came out

00:00:58 — Back to fiction, maybe; part two: the Hank and John chatbot predicts a million-year life, and whether John wants one

  • ★★ Working on The Anthropocene Reviewed has been incredible, but John thinks he is ready to go back to writing fiction, maybe, after a long pause. (hedged) — 00:00:58 · The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast), The Anthropocene Reviewed (book)
  • ★★ After Hank's video in which the AI based on the brothers answered viewers, which John found only moderately dystopian, John tried the chatbot himself. (playful) — 00:00:58 · Hank Green
  • ★★ Mortality is always on John's mind, especially on his birthdays. (playful) — 00:00:58
  • ★★ John first took the chatbot's million-year life expectancy as good news, then fell into a new quandary: does he really want to live a million years? (playful) — 00:01:38
  • ★★ Modern humans have only existed for 250,000 years. — 00:01:38
  • ★ Living through all of human history so far would be extremely exhausting, John feels, and would bring him only a quarter of the way through such a lifespan. (playful) — 00:01:38

00:02:08 — Preferred lifespan of 97; part three: adulthood once feared as a changeless zombie apocalypse turns out full of change

  • ★★ On his 44th birthday John announces that his preferred lifespan is officially 97: a nice solid prime number, since rooting for triple digits would be gauche. (playful) — 00:02:08
  • ★★ When younger, John thought of adulthood as a zombie apocalypse: his job was to stave it off as long as possible, knowing he would inevitably succumb and join the zombie horde. — 00:02:08
  • ★★ Adults seemed to John to devote their lives to boring things like lawn maintenance, life insurance and whether the Chrysler Pacifica beats the Honda Odyssey, and he was horrified. (playful) — 00:02:37
  • ★★★ Deep down, John thinks, what terrified him about proper adulthood was that it seemed like changelessness. — 00:02:37
  • ★★ As a kid John looked at his dad's shoes and marvelled that they were ten years old and still fit. — 00:03:06 · Mike Green
  • ★★ A change in shoe size is not the most important change humans go through, and ten-year-old shoes bring a comfort and pleasure unimaginable to people whose shoe size changes yearly. — 00:03:06
  • ★★★ Most importantly, adulthood turns out to be full of change: John keeps many relationships from 20 years ago, but they have dramatically changed and deepened. — 00:03:06
  • ★★★ Personalities change too: at 30 John hated gardening, exercise and being outside and did not care about third-tier English football, and now he loves all of it. — 00:03:35
  • ★★ John hopes that 15 years from now he will be different again, and toasts that hope and life, just not a million years of it. (hedged) — 00:03:35

In the description and comments

Humor (significant)

  • John recommends the first-spacewalk video on YouTube — 00:00:29

    “I like to watch it whenever my palms are really dry and in need of some sweat.”

  • John says he is ready to go back to fiction, then adds a hesitant maybe — 00:00:58

    “That was a long pause before I said writing fiction.”

  • John asks the chatbot how long he will live — 00:00:58

    “I'm guessing one million years, but I could be off by quite a bit.”

  • John picks 97 as his preferred lifespan — 00:02:08

    “It's a nice, solid, prime number”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: adulthood

Also: People: Alexei Leonov · Hieronymus Bosch · Mike Green

Projects: The Anthropocene Reviewed (podcast)

Works: Alexei Leonov's spacewalk drawing · The Anthropocene Reviewed (book) · The Garden of Earthly Delights

Organizations: EFL League One · YouTube

Concepts: death anxiety · life expectancy · life extension · prime number · Zombie apocalypse

Events: Voskhod 2

Products: Chrysler Pacifica · Honda Odyssey · Shuffle's Hank and John AI chatbot

Only in the description or credits: Bookshop.org · Partners In Health

Also centred on adulthood: 40 · Searching for Betsy in Brazil · Like Apocalyptic Horsemen

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