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Nourished by Leaving

2023-10-03 · letter vlog · John · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature · mode: Personal essay · tags: calendar ritual, self promotion, on location

After a last-week Pizzamas plug, an anxious John walks in an urban Indianapolis forest and finds comfort that life on Earth is very old and continuous, that the human-made and natural worlds are not really separate, and that trees are nourished by the leaves they let go of.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Last week of Pizzamas: merch, blanket, mug and the Cozy Bundle discount

  • ★★ John says it is the last week of Pizzamas, with only a few days left to get Pizzamas t-shirts, a snuggly blanket and a color-changing mug at pizzamas.com. — 00:00:00 · Pizzamas
  • ★★ John announces new Pizzamas discount bundles, including the Cozy Bundle: the blanket and the mug for $30 off. — 00:00:13 · Pizzamas

00:00:19 — Anxious John goes outside; Hank's TikTok point that life on Earth is very old though humans are young

  • ★★ John admits he is anxious and goes outside, because touching grass and being among trees actually helps him. — 00:00:19 · touch grass
  • ★★★ John recalls Hank's TikTok: humans live briefly and our species is young, but seen as part of one continuous biological phenomenon called life, things look quite different. — 00:00:35 · Hank Green, TikTok
  • ★★★ John says life on Earth has existed continuously for about 3.7 billion years, around 23% of the history of the universe. — 00:00:49 · Earth
  • ★★ John says even the tuatara, which existed before large dinosaurs, is only around 250 million years old, less than 10% of the history of life on Earth. — 00:01:07 · Earth
  • ★★★ John says we and most species around us are new, but life is very old, and he finds that a little comforting. — 00:01:17

00:01:27 — The urban forest: Prohibition whiskey structures, Albert Lieber, invasive ivy, the polluted White River; no separation of artificial and natural

  • ★★ John says the urban-ish forest holds steel husks and concrete structures once used to house whiskey barrels during Prohibition. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ John says the forest was once private property of Albert Lieber, who made and lost a fortune selling booze and was novelist Kurt Vonnegut's grandfather. — 00:01:39
  • ★★★ John says in a city the human-shaped world is everywhere, even in the forest, from invasive ivy to the very polluted White River: there is no full separation between these worlds. — 00:01:50
  • ★★★ John says we try to call some things artificial and others natural, but concrete and steel are made out of earth like everything else. — 00:02:04

00:02:12 — John breathes easier and, like his friend Henry, feels encouraged by beauty

  • ★★ John starts to breathe easier: he is part of a continuous process of life stretching a quarter of the way back to the beginning of time; it is a good place to be. — 00:02:12 · Earth
  • ★★ John says his friend Henry in Sierra Leone is encouraged when he sees beauty or goodness in the world, and John now feels encouraged too. — 00:02:26 · Sierra Leone

00:02:36 — Autumn explained as to non-Earth folk: trees nourished by the leaves they let go of; sign-off

  • ★★ John says the leaves start to fall in Indianapolis in October, and someone who had never been to Earth would find the idea phenomenally beautiful. — 00:02:36 · Indianapolis, Earth
  • ★★ John explains autumn as to non-Earth folk: as parts of Earth tilt away from our star it gets colder, and trees' leaves change color, fall, and regrow when Earth tilts back. — 00:02:46 · Earth
  • ★ John says leaves dropped by young trees may in time become soil that helps support the same tree as it ages. (hedged) — 00:03:36

  • ★★★ John concludes that trees are nourished by what they let go of, by what they leave behind, and finds that a great encouragement. — 00:03:45

    “our trees are nourished by what they let go of”

In the description and comments

  • ★ In a channel comment John says much White River pollution comes from far upriver; Indianapolis is working to end sewage dumps, but the river will stay polluted for the foreseeable future. — creator comment · Indianapolis
  • ★ In a channel comment John says he likes doing premieres during Pizzamas because they give conversational time, everyone doing something together. — creator comment · Pizzamas

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Anthropocene · life · tree

Also: People: Albert Lieber · Henry Reider · Kurt Vonnegut

Projects: Pizzamas

Organizations: TikTok

Concepts: age of the universe · anxiety disorder · decomposition · invasive species · tuatara

Places: Earth · Indianapolis · Sierra Leone · Sun (star) · White River (Indiana)

Events: Prohibition in the United States

Memes: touch grass

Only in the description or credits: sewage

Also centred on Anthropocene: John Reviews Kids Movies · The Introducer, My Childhood Dream Job · The Anthropocene Reviewed, Animated · I Had a Hallucination This Week

Also centred on life: Google Is Alive! · Thoughts From the Universe - Woah · Are Languages Alive? · I Had a Hallucination This Week · Moon Joy

Also centred on tree: October 4, 2024 · At Least There Are Trees · The Molecule that Changed Everything · I Like Being Alive

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