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How do you cross the Sad Gap?

2022-04-19 · letter vlog · John · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development · mode: Personal essay · tags: community lore, heavy topic

Answering Hank's question about crossing the sad gap, John tells how the community's crisis-driven giving, starting with the 2010 Haiti earthquake, left him in the gap until Partners In Health's Dr. Joia Mukherjee asked them in 2014 to stay in Sierra Leone; he argues for choosing priorities and going deep.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Hank's question; the Haiti earthquake, short-term giving and shifting attention

  • ★★ Answering Hank's question about how he overcomes despair and helplessness before big problems and comes to believe something can be done, John tells a story. — 00:00:00 · sad gap, Hank Green
  • ★★ John says they started working with Partners In Health in 2010 in response to the Haiti earthquake, focused on it because everyone was; as a community they felt powerless. — 00:00:00 · Partners In Health, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ John says the suffering after the Haiti earthquake was caused at its core not by the earthquake but by human choices and systems that impoverished Haiti for centuries. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ John says much of the money raised for Haiti earthquake relief was not spent in Haiti, and most that was went to short-term interventions that didn't strengthen systems. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ John credits Partners In Health's long-term investment in Haiti's health system for the University Hospital in Mirebalais, stressing he wasn't responsible: he was all about short-term thinking. — 00:00:58 · Partners In Health
  • ★★★ John says their philanthropy then was about their own helplessness, not grounded in listening to those affected, so their attention moved with the world's: Japan's tsunami, Syrian refugees, Ebola. — 00:01:27 · aid effectiveness
  • ★★ Without a first priority, John felt there were always new crises and the old ones never got better, which left him perpetually in the sad gap. — 00:01:27 · sad gap

00:01:56 — 2014: Dr. Joia Mukherjee on Ebola and the request to stay

  • ★★★ John's life changed in 2014 when he asked PIH's chief medical officer, Dr. Joia Mukherjee, whether PIH would be part of the Project for Awesome's Ebola fundraising. — 00:01:56 · Partners In Health, Project for Awesome
  • ★★★ John reports Dr. Mukherjee telling him that 15% of Sierra Leone's health care workers had already died of Ebola. — 00:01:56 · Sierra Leone
  • ★★★ Joia Mukherjee (quoted): Dr. Mukherjee said charities leaving when the crisis ended would leave Sierra Leone's health system more fragile, so PIH was going and staying, to build a stronger system for the next catastrophe. — 00:02:26 · Partners In Health, Sierra Leone, aid effectiveness
  • ★★★ Dr. Mukherjee asked them to stay too, and John says that request changed his life. — 00:02:26
  • ★★★ John says staying, learning and listening through open-ended commitments helps him cross the sad gap: our shared problems are tremendous, but so is our shared capacity to address them. — 00:02:26 · sad gap

00:02:55 — Choose priorities and go deep; others' strategies in the comments

  • ★★★ John says raising money for crises matters, but so do priorities, accepting that others have different ones: no one can go deep on everything, and depth makes you more valuable. — 00:02:55
  • ★★ John goes deep on maternal and child health in West Africa, Hank on climate change, and Rosianna Halse Rojas is getting a master's in refugee studies; all benefit from each other's priorities. — 00:02:55 · maternal death, Hank Green, climate change, Rosianna Halse Rojas
  • ★★★ John's way across the sad gap: choose priorities and go deep, beyond podcasts and books, attending meetings and symposia to learn from people making change, so you believe change is possible. — 00:03:24 · sad gap
  • ★★ John lists other strategies viewers recommended in the comments of Hank's video below and asks viewers to add to them. — 00:03:24 · Hank Green

00:03:53 — Sign-off

In the description and comments

  • ★★ A strategy from comments John lists: there is very little evil; almost no one thinks they or their policies are malicious, and a different life would bring different values. — video description
  • ★★ Another listed strategy: listen to people working on a problem, study their past successes, and notice the many ways the world is better than a generation ago. — video description
  • ★★ Another listed strategy: connect with individuals, since relationships both carry you across the sad gap and deepen your understanding of the challenges you care about. — video description · sad gap
  • ★★ Another listed strategy: believe in humanity's possibility, looking to moments of solidarity such as Damascus's response to the plague and systems built for shared needs. — video description
  • ★★ Another listed strategy: be grateful for others' work, trusting wonderful people to work on problems you can't engage with deeply; John says 'one first priority' inspired the video. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: 2010 Haiti earthquake · Joia Mukherjee · Partners In Health · sad gap

Also: People: Rosianna Halse Rojas

Projects: Project for Awesome

Organizations: University Hospital of Mirebalais

Concepts: aid effectiveness · climate change · maternal death · refugee · systems thinking

Places: Haiti · Sierra Leone · West Africa

Events: Syrian refugee crisis · Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami · Western African Ebola virus epidemic

Only in the description or credits: Damascus · Plague (disease)

Also centred on 2010 Haiti earthquake: My Earthquake Story - (And Thoughts About Numbers)

Also centred on Joia Mukherjee: Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff!

Also centred on sad gap: Are You Stuck in The Sad Gap

Replies to

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