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I Like Being Alive

2025-10-09 · letter vlog · John · 4:42 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: Projects, Personal life, Internet & YouTube, Science & nature) · mode: Personal essay · tags: calendar ritual, self promotion, on location

Sitting in his kids' treehouse after Hank's song 'Being Alive', John wonders where meaning in life comes from and suggests one answer: do what makes him like being alive; trees, which outlive us and sprout again after being cut down (the Broccoli Tree, the Sycamore Gap tree), become his metaphor for hope.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Pizzamas almost over; Hank's song gave the title and reminded John he likes being alive, especially outside

  • ★★ John says Pizzamas has almost come to an end and its merch is available only until this weekend. — 00:00:00 · Pizzamas
  • ★ John says he will miss Pizzamas desperately but needs to go back to having a real life. (playful) — 00:00:00 · Pizzamas
  • ★★ John says Hank's song yesterday gave this video its title and reminded him that he likes being alive, especially outside. — 00:00:00 · Hank Green
  • ★★ John says he used to be a confirmed inside cat, but that has changed over the last 20 years: these days he likes getting outside and feeling the air on his skin. — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — The treehouse John built with his friend Alex for kids who were already too old for it

  • ★★ John films in his kids' treehouse, which he and his friend Alex built together; the kids never really used it because by then they were too old. — 00:00:29
  • ★ John says Alex is a really good carpenter and John a rank amateur who mostly followed instructions, yet over one long weekend they made something that had not existed before. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ John thinks Hank's song is basically right that we need a slow internet movement or a change in online discourse: use the useful parts of the internet and reject the nuance-free, bad-faith parts. — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — A slow internet movement, AI-generated content, and the actual universe under the trees

  • ★★ John says things are about to get weirder because a tremendous amount of content generated now is AI-generated rather than user-generated. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ John says he doesn't even know what AI-generated content will mean, but he knows it will be a big deal. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ John submits that although it feels like there is an entire universe inside our phones, the actual universe is out here, under trees. — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — Where meaning in life comes from, how it shapes choices, and one answer: do what makes him like being alive

  • ★★★ John says he spends much time wondering where meaning in life comes from: a higher source or construction with friends, doing good and easing suffering, loving and being loved, understanding, or preparing for the world to come. — 00:01:27 · meaning of life
  • ★★ John says these questions shape real choices: stay home with family or go to a conference; raise the most money for PIH through Pizzamas, or do good by lobbying Congress or talking about what he cares about. — 00:01:59 · Pizzamas, Partners In Health, United States Congress

  • ★★★ John suggests that one answer, which first occurred to him yesterday, is that he should do what makes him like being alive. (hedged) — 00:01:59 · meaning of life

    “I should do what makes me like being alive”

  • ★★ John says alleviating suffering, being with the kids and writing make him like being alive, but he doesn't do much of what he knows does, like walking in the woods. — 00:01:59

00:02:37 — Trees: they outnumber and outlive us; the oldest trees; the felled Broccoli Tree and Sycamore Gap tree sprouting again

  • ★★ John likes being with trees because they vastly outnumber us and often dramatically outlive us; being with them reminds him that this is a plant planet. — 00:02:37

    “to be with trees is to be reminded that this is a plant planet”

  • ★★ John says some individual trees in the United States are ten times older than the United States itself. — 00:02:37 · United States

  • ★★ John says there are trees older than the idea of Romulus and Remus, trees that were alive when the pyramids were built. — 00:02:37
  • ★★ John says the oldest known tree in the world, a bristlecone pine, is in the United States, and the Forest Service keeps its location secret to prevent vandalism. — 00:02:37 · United States
  • ★★ John says that given enough time and enough people knowing where something is, they will cut it down. — 00:03:06
  • ★★ John says the Broccoli Tree in Sweden and the Sycamore Gap tree in Britain were cut down, but both have since sprouted new life from their felled trunks. — 00:03:06 · United Kingdom

00:03:36 — Hope survives the unsurvivable; John likes being alive and being an organism; thanks to Hank and Nerdfighteria; sign-off

  • ★★★ John calls the felled trees' regrowth a metaphor for hope: they won't look as they did, yet they survive; hope sprouts different but undiminished from the wounds we inflict and survives the unsurvivable. — 00:03:36 · hope
  • ★★ John says he likes being alive, at least today, and is grateful to all the past versions of himself who fought and scraped so that today he could. — 00:03:36
  • ★★ John thanks Hank for reminding him so many times over the last 19 years that he likes being alive. — 00:04:05 · Hank Green
  • ★★ John likes being a land mammal and being reminded he is an organism, which he didn't always like; now he is drawn to his biology and to being a temporary but important force in the world. — 00:04:05
  • ★★ John thanks Hank and Nerdfighteria for being with him on this exceptionally weird journey. — 00:04:05 · Hank Green, Nerdfighteria

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: hope · meaning of life · tree

Also: People: Alex (friend, mentioned from 2025)

Projects: Pizzamas

Works: Being Alive

Organizations: Partners In Health · United States Congress · United States Forest Service

Rituals: Song Wednesday

Concepts: Bristlecone pine · generative artificial intelligence

Places: Broccoli Tree · Egyptian pyramids · Sweden · Sycamore Gap tree · United Kingdom · United States

Myths: Romulus and Remus

Also centred on tree: Nourished by Leaving · October 4, 2024 · At Least There Are Trees · The Molecule that Changed Everything

Replies to

  • continues · Being Alive — “Hank, your song yesterday didn't just give this video its title.”

Later videos replying to this one

Part of an exchange of 3 videos, 2025-10-08 – 2025-10-10.