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taking a break

2024-06-25 · letter vlog · John · 3:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Personal life (also: Internet & YouTube, Philosophy & meaning) · mode: Personal update · tags: heavy topic

After congratulating Hank on his comedy special, John says he will take July away from the internet because of depression: finishing his book feels like too much, and like Daniel Biss's clean water dumped into the toxic lake of Twitter he doubts his making stuff helps anyone; he closes by insisting that despair and hopelessness are lies.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Congratulations on Hank's comedy special; John is taking time off for the first time in 17 and a half years

  • ★★ John congratulates Hank on his comedy special: it is so good and John is so proud of him. — 00:00:00 · Hank Green
  • ★★★ John is taking time off; in 17 and a half years of making videos he has never had to do this, and he feels really bad about it. — 00:00:00 · Vlogbrothers
  • ★★ John says recent video titles such as How It All Ends, A Midlife Crisis and Not Doing That Great may indicate that he has not been doing that great. (hedged) — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — The plan (VidCon, then July away from the internet), depression, the book and nine months of struggling to make things

  • ★★★ John will be at VidCon this weekend and online for a few days, then take July away from the internet entirely to see if it helps, and see how he feels in August. — 00:00:29 · VidCon
  • ★★★ John can't tell where circumstances end and depression begins: he is in an objectively hard time he won't make public, but has had harder times without this much despair. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Depressed for quite a while, John finds it hard to judge what is real: everything great feels illusory and everything terrible utterly true. — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ John must finish his book so it can come out next year (2025), and that alone feels like too much work for his depressed brain. — 00:00:58 · Everything Is Tuberculosis
  • ★★★ For a little over nine months John has really struggled with making stuff. — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — Daniel Biss's toxic-lake analogy for Twitter and John's doubt whether his making stuff helps anyone

  • ★★ John recently spoke with Brotherhood 2.0's resident mathematician Daniel Biss, now mayor of Evanston, Illinois, who explained why he left Twitter. — 00:01:27 · Daniel Biss, Brotherhood 2.0, Twitter

  • ★★★ Daniel Biss (quoted): Biss thought he brought clean water daily to Twitter's toxic lake, but realized he was only raising the toxic lake's level while ruining a bit of clean water. — 00:01:56 · Twitter

    “I was dumping a bucket of clean water into a toxic lake”

  • ★★★ John says that is how he feels about making stuff now, especially on Twitter or TikTok but also everywhere. — 00:01:56 · Twitter, TikTok

  • ★★★ John genuinely doesn't know whether he should be making anything, or whether his work helps anyone or only raises the level of the toxic lake. (unsure) — 00:01:56

00:02:26 — Overwhelmed and in despair, John needs time away; depression tells him his work is worthless

  • ★★ John feels this less on Vlogbrothers than anywhere else on the internet. — 00:02:26 · Vlogbrothers
  • ★★ Overwhelmed, with his nerves seemingly outside his body, John can't do it right now and needs time away to get it sorted. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ John says he is currently a bit demented by despair, but knows he is not alone in that. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ John says depression counters every worthwhile thing he tries to convince himself he has done by telling him the world would be better if he had not done it. — 00:02:26

00:03:05 — Goodbye for now: despair and hopelessness are lies, and John will work on telling himself so in July

  • ★★ Depression convinces John that he is worthless and his work worse than worthless; he speaks from the bottom of the well. — 00:03:05

  • ★★★ As his goodbye for now, John says despair is a lie and hopelessness is a lie. — 00:03:05 · hope

    “despair is a lie. Hopelessness is a lie.”

  • ★★★ John says no simple story can ever be true, and there is no simpler story than that nothing means anything. — 00:03:05

  • ★★★ John tells viewers that their not being loved or worthy of love, and their passion, work and spark of consciousness not mattering, are lies. — 00:03:05
  • ★★★ John says he struggles to tell himself this, and in July he will work on telling himself what he has told viewers all along: that hope sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. — 00:03:05 · hope

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: depression · despair · hope

Also: People: Daniel Biss

Projects: Brotherhood 2.0 · VidCon

Works: "Hope" is the thing with feathers · Everything Is Tuberculosis · Hank Green's stand-up comedy special on Dropout

Organizations: TikTok · Twitter

Concepts: self-esteem

Places: Evanston, Illinois

Also centred on depression: Perspective · The Sycamore Tree: The Anthropocene Reviewed · Minus Its Charms · What Helped Through Depression

Also centred on despair: The Seduction of Despair · Gastrointestinal Hypermotility in Tuatara · Moving to Hope from Hopelessness (3 ways) · Despair is Not Wisdom

Replies to

Later videos replying to this one

Part of an exchange of 4 videos, 2024-05-28 – 2024-07-09.