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The Web of Care

2021-10-13 · letter vlog · Hank · 3:57 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: Health, Personal life, US politics & society) · mode: Personal essay · tags: calendar ritual

Praising John's 17-mile run and a Heavyweight episode about him, Hank uses a vaccinated friend's frustration at catching COVID and his own voting to argue that we act as individuals but the world acts on us collectively, so no one need care about everything: we live in a web of care and can trust others to do their part.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — John's 17 slow miles, Hank's non-running, John as inspirational; the Heavyweight episode

  • ★ Hank says he is going 'Pizza John Classic' today. (playful) — 00:00:00 · Pizza John
  • ★★ Since speed is relative, Hank tells John that to him and probably many viewers any speed after 16 miles of running is effectively infinite, so John's 17 miles were not slow. (playful) — 00:00:00 · John Green
  • ★★ In his 41 years Hank has never run more than one mile at a time. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank finds John's willpower to keep exercising inspirational: he hasn't managed it but John makes him feel he could; John is a pretty inspirational guy. — 00:00:29 · John Green
  • ★★ Hank was reminded of this by the latest episode of the podcast Heavyweight, titled "John", in which John is the John in question, and is amazed John still had that story after 15 years online. — 00:00:29 · John Green

00:00:54 — No one can care about everything; a vaccinated friend's COVID and what precautions are for

  • ★★★ The episode made Hank think how big the world is and that no one can care about everything, which is okay: everything is a lot of things. — 00:00:54

    “Everything is a lot of things.”

  • ★★ A young, vaccinated friend of Hank's got COVID; she will be fine but feels awful and frustrated that two years of being careful were for nothing. — 00:00:54 · COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine

  • ★★★ Hank argues two years of masks, lockdowns and care were not meant to eliminate any individual's chance of getting COVID. — 00:00:54 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★★ The risk can't be eliminated; precautions lower each person's probability of infection, which slows overall spread, so everyone has lower odds but some get unlucky. — 00:01:38 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★ Hank says his friend probably would have caught COVID as often without precautions, though she is vaccinated so it will be milder, and she might otherwise have caught it more than once. (hedged) — 00:01:38 · vaccine, COVID-19 pandemic

00:02:07 — We are individuals but the world acts on us collectively, like voting

  • ★★★ Hank's real point: we think of ourselves as individuals, but the world acts on us as a collective. — 00:02:07 · collective action
  • ★★★ Like voting: Hank knew his one vote in a red state with three electoral votes would not affect the presidential election, but voted, since if everyone thinks that, no one votes, and that is no democracy. — 00:02:07
  • ★★ Hank says John has cared for years about a person he would have had no connection with but for a peculiar, specific moment in his life. — 00:02:07 · John Green

00:02:36 — The web of care: not caring about everything is not callous; trust others; sign-off

  • ★★★ No individual must care about or do everything, from never getting COVID to cutting maternal mortality in Sierra Leone or cooking every meal: we do all of it in a web of care. — 00:02:36 · collective action, maternal death, Sierra Leone, COVID-19 pandemic

    “We do all of these things in a web of care.”

  • ★★ If all of us extend our care a little further, the web catches more things. — 00:02:36

  • ★★★ Hank says he doesn't need to care about everything: thinking he must is a kind of selfish thought, and that is what other people are for. — 00:03:06
  • ★★ Saying he doesn't need to care about everything makes Hank feel gross and sounds callous, but he means those things don't need his care, not that they are unworthy of it. — 00:03:06
  • ★★★ Hank must trust fellow members of the web to do their care; it is good we don't have to care about everything, not least because we can't. — 00:03:35 · collective action

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says we are individuals but act on the world, and it on us, in ways individuality explains badly; Hank's self-centered 'everything needs me' feeling serves neither the world nor him. — video description
  • ★ The description raises follow-up questions: are we extending our care in the right directions, and is the web growing where it needs to grow? — video description

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: collective action

Also: COVID-19 pandemic · Heavyweight · maternal death · paradox of voting · Pizza John · Sierra Leone · vaccine

Only in the description or credits: individualism

Replies to

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