Dear Hank & John - 23: OH MY GOD IT'S BURNING

Episode Date: November 9, 2015

Why do different trees change color at different times? What if a friend isn't creating their creative work that you love? Some advice for job and scholarship interviews. How do I express empathy properly? How should I feel about getting worse at Tetris?

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Because like, with chronic, with any kind of like chronic health problem, you never want to acknowledge that you're in a bit of a valley. Yes. Even though, of course, there are those valleys. And then it's just a weird thing, because if you acknowledge that you're in a valley,

then people start to ask you more about it, which doesn't really help. And like, but then you also feel dishonest, and maybe other people who have chronic health problems, when they're in valleys, they feel like it's unnatural or whatever. So I don't know, I'm just being totally honest, adjusting to this new medication, not going well.

So I'm in a bit of a valley, but the sun is shining, as we will later learn in about 30 to 40 minutes, wonderful things are happening in South London. There is much to be hopeful about. That is how I'm doing. How are you? Well, first of all, I just want to say how thankful I am that we got through your section of the house at Goins without any mention, not a single mention of Taylor Swift. Oh, that reminds me though that the weather is beautiful likely because Taylor Swift's 1989 concert

tour is coming to its American end very soon. I'm doing good. I just had a subway egg white flatbread. The onions were way too hot. And so now I feel like my entire body smells like a giant onion. But other than that, the people at the subway in Mizzou, Montana are lovely.

And I like them. And they're always very, very friendly. A several of them appear to know who I am. Recently I went in there, and they were like, so what are you doing this weekend? And I was like, going to Seattle, and they were like, oh yeah, for the night veil tour thing. And I was like, right, yes, for that.

Person who knows about my life. Well, if they know who you are, then there's a fair chance they're listening, and if they are, you over onion tanks flatbread, under onion next time. Oh, they didn't over onion it. It was clearly the onions fault. There were not a ton of onions. It was just very, you know,

you never know how what density of onion flavor is going to be in the onion. That's so true. Another thing that happened this weekend is Halloween, which was lovely. It was just great. Alice dressed up as a doctor or as she says, doctor. And when I asked what kind of doctor, she would say, a baby doctor.

That's good. And Henry dressed up as clone commander Grie from the Star Wars universe. Liverpool beat Chelsea, which is about the best result that you can hope for in life. And Zulea, our office manager here in the Indianapolis office, watched Star Wars for the first time in entire sexology, which she had never seen. And I got to watch the first two Star Wars movies with her after seeing her Chelsea get defeated by Liverpool. So it was very enjoyable.

It was a good weekend. Good, good. I went to see the Rocky Horror picture show. And it was not actually the Rocky Horror picture show, the Rocky Horror show, the stage version, which they do in Mizzoula. Starring Reed Rhymers, who is one of the hosts of SciShow Space. If you've ever seen him, he's Dr. Frankonferter. That guy is like six, six before he puts on his six inch heels. He does indeed look like a space alien on the stage with all of the normal people. It's amazing. Hank, would you like a short poem for today? Oh, thanks. Yeah, give me a short poem, today. Oh thanks yeah give me a short poem John. I've been holding on to this one Hank it's a single line of perfect iambic pentameter the last Will and Testament of John Keats

great British romantic poet my chest of books divide among my friends. Are we done was that that? That's the poem that is his entire last Will and Testament. My chest of books divide among my friends. Oh, well, at least we got to the death quick. Yes, he knew he was dying when he wrote that. Another great line of Iambic pentameter, that Keats wrote in his diaries. He'd been taking care of his brother who had tuberculosis and Keats began coughing and he coughed up some blood and near the drop of blood in his diary, he wrote this drop of blood. It spells my death. Wow. I guess that's actually in line of Iambic quadrameter, but you know.

Oh man. Still pretty dark. Yeah, I'm glad that we don't have so much tuberculosis in the world, but you know, much at all here in America. I guess there is. But we still have way too much tuberculosis. It's ridiculous actually. And now. How much tuberculosis we have. Now we have the tuberculosis that can't, that is very difficult to treat as well.

Yeah, there's multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, but also just the treatment regimens. When I was in Ethiopia, I spent a lot of time, or at least a few hours, not a lot of time, with some tuberculosis patients who have to come into these primary health care centers pretty much every week to get the right medication and get their loads checked to find out how much tuberculosis they have and everything. And what was really interesting to me is that before those primary healthcare centers, they just, there was no way to get the medication

that you needed, which is part of the reason that we have so much drug-resistant tuberculosis because we had very poorly controlled ways of dispensing antibiotics. And often the wrong ones would get dispensed because it would be an unlicensed or untrained person or a family member trying to buy medicine for someone. It was really interesting and an illustration of how badly we need this relatively inexpensive but difficult to maintain, difficult to invest in primary healthcare systems

in the developing world. Like once we have those places, once you build that infrastructure, it completely transforms those communities. What were we talking about? What is this podcast devoted to? Is it about John Keats' death and global health, or is it about answering viewers' questions?

All right, let's do one. This question is from Clara, who says, dear Hank and John, I really enjoy listening to your podcast while cooking. Would you mind screaming, oh my god, it's burning every now and then? That would be incredibly helpful. Apparently Clara is having a hard time preventing herself from being distracted by our excellent death-based humor and is burning her food. So let's just remember to yell at Clara every once in a while during

this podcast. Oh my god, it's burning! I think probably let's just remember to yell at Clara every once in a while during this podcast. Oh my God, it's burning! I think probably she's good right now. But maybe not. Well, she's got that, she can just make it so that her timer, instead of just making a beeping sound, makes that sound. And I think that that would, it would persuade almost anyone to take their pizza out of the oven. You know, I think I might do that. I might, that might be my new timer. Can, how do you do that on an iPhone?

Somebody, somebody tell me how to do that. At Hank Green on Twitter, and Hank GRE on Snapchat. Oh God, I knew we were not going to get through this podcast without you saying again, your Snapchat username. Sorry, I get all for fuddled when we talk about Snapchat. Let's answer a different question. Okay. Dear Jenny.

Nope. Dear John and Hank. The question is from Jenny. Dear John and Hank, my husband is incredibly creative and talented in using words. His writing has dramatically dropped since we have been married for two years and it worries me. How do I encourage a writer to write without being pushy? If you've had a similar experience,

what has been most helpful to you from your spouses, that is from Jenny. Dear Jenny, here in my response. Kurt Vonnegut sister once, Kurt Vonnegut sister was a great sculptor, but she chose not to make art for most of her life and most of her career. And Vaughnick would always bother her about it and say, why don't you make art, why aren't you sculpting?

And she said, just because you're good at something doesn't mean that you have to do it. And I guess the first thing that I would say is that people who are talented at something are under no responsibility, in my opinion, anyway, to do it. If it brings you joy, and if it, then by all means, do it. And I don't think that you should use that as an excuse not to do things, but I also don't think you're under an obligation to do something just because you're good at it. My wife is an incredibly talented drafts person. Hank, you know this, like her work with graphite

and pencil is just astonishingly beautiful and has been since college, but she doesn't really like to make art, like she doesn't want to be an artist. That's not what she wants to do with her life at least right now. And so she doesn't. And I used artist, that's not what she wants to do with her life at least right now. And so she doesn't. And I used to feel the way that Jenny does. I used to feel like maybe if I push Sarah, maybe if I got her art supply,

maybe if I did this or did that, but it's not my life. And Sarah's dreams are not my dreams for her. Now that said, if your husband wants to write and just is finding it difficult, I guess the thing that I would say that's most helpful to me is when, you know, my partner helps me to make time to write, you know, puts it on the calendar with me and honors that time and even honors it when I don't succeed at writing. Like even even then is like, okay, well, we'll just keep trying. Excellent.

Oh my God, it's burning! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha To me, the point of the documentary was explaining to me why on earth someone would do something like this. So this guy was, he's trying to do a, to break a world record for the fastest run around Mount Rainier and it's about a 20-hour run. That's just a crazy thing to me. To run for 20 hours. Why? It makes me think of why we find the things valuable that we find valuable. There's no objective reason why running around mountain rainier faster than another person is valuable, except that it is a remarkable feat, and also there is a community of people who support each other

in doing that thing. Do you find it as a writer, John, important to be a part of a community of other artists? In a roundabout way, I also just watched that documentary hank at your recommendation, and I also found it fascinating immediately after watching it I went and ran for seven miles until I vomited Really? So that's what I took away from it. I

Didn't do that. I had a I had a flat bread from subway I thought it was a really it was a really good documentary is It was made by Ethan Newberry, long time YouTuber, and it was just doing incredible work under the moniker, the ginger runner. And I do think that community is important. I do think it's helpful to feel like you're writing with people and for people. But yeah, I guess I'm not one of these people who believes that much of anything has inherent value. You know, like I think that we sort of give things value.

We make choices about how to construct meaning in life. And you know, we give meaning to stories. And I do think there's maybe some objective meaning in stories, but a lot of it, you know, a lot of it isn't there, a lot of it is given to stories by the people who care about them, and the same is true of running, the same is true of soccer, the same is true of almost a YouTube, of almost everything that we, you know, we love and care about. Like there are a few objective truths, maybe there are a few objective goods, know that that suffering is bad that parents shouldn't have to bury their children you know that education is good you know there are a few but not a lot and you know in

the course of a human life you're gonna you know you're gonna do a lot of you're gonna do a lot of things that are not inherently meaningful, but are given meaning by the people around you or by the community around you. So I guess I would say, if your spouse really wants to write Jenny, then try to be part of that community. Yeah, I know I would never have made the things that we have made over the past eight years on the vlog But there's channel or a sexual and crash course if it weren't for there being an audience there to Make things for and also a broader community of YouTubers who are doing different and interesting things that

that and like pushing each other to to make make cool stuff and And I'm really happy for tip to have gotten lucky to be a part of that. Hank, we have another question. This one is from Emma, who writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm getting to the age where I need to start facing interviews

for various things, mainly university and jobs. Do you have any tips on how to present yourself to fit with the interviewer's looking for but at the same time express who you are even though you find it difficult to have the confidence to do so upon meeting new people. Also how important do you think first impressions are in an interview and in life generally? Also as an AFC Wimbledon player for the women's side of the club, what?

Emma? You're really buried the lead here. Thank you so much for the support. We kicked off our season last Sunday and I was wondering how good a football player you guys are. And then she explains the proper English football played with feet and a ball as the name suggests. That's from Emma from London in the United Kingdom. Emma, first off, thank you for listening to our podcast.

And for your hard work on behalf of the AFC Wimbledon girls and ladies teams. They are amazing. Did you know Hank that Manchester United does not even feel the women's team? Manchester United, one of the biggest clubs in the world. Have I mentioned this to you before? It's possible. It's terrible. AFC Wimbledon, however, has a really strong women's football program and I'm so glad that they have Emma, I don't know what position she plays, but either stately defending or scoring lots of goals. As for interviews, I mean, Hank, wouldn't you just walk into the interview and say, my name is Emma, I play for AFC Wimbledon and sort of wait to be accepted?

Yeah, I mean, that's definitely not nothing. I hire people a lot, so I have a number of actual thoughts on this, but first I wanna say that I am awful, awful at soccer. I did play as a child, and my only experience as an adult playing soccer, there was a league in my graduate program, and and I walked on as support. I was just watching as a fan and then somebody was like, oh, you can go out and play a bit. And in my career

as an adult soccer player, the only thing I accomplished was getting winded almost scoring an own goal and kicking my own goalie. Beautiful. So I was not, it was actually quite petrifying. It was one of the most embarrassing things that's happened to me in the last 10 years of life. I will briefly comment on my own footballing skills. I am terrible. I played in an over 30 indoor league

for a team called the Dead Rabbits. I fouled a lot. That's always been my main strategy. But I was reasonably good in middle school, not like good enough to start for my middle school school's soccer team, but good enough to come off the bench occasionally and have the coach point at me after the game

and say, greens out there trying even though he sucks, why aren't the rest of you trying? That's right. You were trying even though you suck. What are your thoughts on interviews? Oh, I think the most important skill in life is empathy. And I think you walk into an interview, if you walk into an interview thinking,

what is this person need? And how can I help them accomplish it? That's really like, that's what the actual thing going on is, like hiring someone for a job means I need help. And you can provide that help. And figuring out like, what are the, like if it's something as simple as a fast food position, like what that person is looking for is someone

who's dependable, someone who will stick around, someone who will come in on time, someone who will learn fast and be enthusiastic about it. And that is, you know, that's a lot of jobs. But if it's something that has has a sort of deeper skill set, then what you're looking for is like, how can I help this person solve the problems they need to solve? And that's what jobs are.

That's what every single job is. It's solving problems for customers and for your boss. That's what it is. All the way up the chain until you don't have a boss anymore. And then you're solving problems for your customers and your boss. That's what it is. All the way up the chain until you don't have a boss anymore. And then you're solving problems for your customers and your employees. And that's, yeah, so like, think, it's obviously is a very broad thing because I don't know what kind of jobs you're looking for, but that's really what it is. It's going in understanding that this isn't a person who's going to give you something. It's a transaction that's being made, and they want someone to help them.

And if you're thinking about it that way, when I find people in interviews thinking about it that way, I'm much more likely to be like, at the very least, they are empathetic, and they get that I, just like them, need to solve a problem. Yeah, I think that's brilliant advice. I think that in the end, it's important to

remember that, you know, the person who's interviewing you probably wants to hire you or probably wants to let you into college, you know, and hopefully that can ease some of the pressure. It's a high pressure situation, though, and there's no getting around that. But yeah, I mean, you're trying to, you know, you're trying to add value to someone else's organization or to their lives or whatever. Like, you know, looking back at my college interview, like, I, you know, I should have been like, I should have walked into that interview and just listened and talked about my interests and assumed that in that process I was going to be able to add value to the colleges that were going to be right for me. But that's very hard to do practically, but I think Hank's advice

is solved. Yeah, I have a lot less experience as a person who lets people into universities than I do as a person who lets people into jobs. So I don't really know, I'm not really entirely sure what, it's weird to interview to give someone money, which is the process of interviewing and applying to a college. It's all institutions that you give a great deal of money to, but they would first like you to to feel honored for the pledge on, let's move on to a question from Lou. But first, I have to say, oh my god, it's burning! We can't forget John. Oh, sorry, I'm sorry. It's probably burned in the interim.

Ha, ha, ha, ha. This question, so Lou says, dear Hank and John, there must be a better way to express empathy than saying, I'm sorry. Saying, I'm sorry places blame on the person expressing empathy and normally causes the person receiving empathy to reply with something along the lines of, it's not your fault, or even worse, misplacing negative feelings towards someone who was genuinely trying to voice compassion to their situation.

I've taken to saying, yo bro, I know that feel, but in some situations it seems improper. What do you guys think? Is there better vocabulary that can be used to express empathy? Good question. I do think that yo-bro I know that feel is often improper. Yes. I think that is correct. Yes, so when I was a student chaplain at a children's hospital, I learned about this

thing called empathic listening. First off, I don't think there's anything wrong with saying I'm sorry. I think that often that is what you feel is sorry. And I don't think that at least like when I've been in pain, like sometimes hearing that I'm so hearing that someone is sorry for my pain is helpful. But empathic listening is basically a version of yo-bro I know that feel that doesn't claim real knowledge of the feeling because like in fact like you might not know that feel. You know what I mean? You might not be able to relate to it or identify with it, but you don't want to claim someone

else's pain as your own or claim that you fully understand it. So, you know, like an example of empathic listening might be that someone tells you that they're feeling very sad and you say, I'm hearing that you're feeling very sad right now, or even like getting them to that place that you imagine that they're at, or like acknowledging it,

so saying you must be feeling very sad right now, you must be feeling very guilty right now, whatever. It sounds like the stupidest thing in the world. Someone says, I'm sad, you say, I'm hearing that you're feeling sad. Obviously, in a perfect world, you want to phrase it a little more subtly than that so that it doesn't feel awkward in conversation, but it is at least in my experience astonishingly effective. Just to acknowledge what someone else is feeling and to acknowledge that you hear what

they're feeling is really powerful. That's a great answer. I know nothing about that. It's so... Fun to realize how dumb you are sometimes and be like, oh wow, yeah, I don't think about that at all. So tell me, I honestly, I just want you to give a whole podcast sermon on empathic listening, John, because I want to be better at that. Yeah, we'll just imagine how people are feeling or listen to how people are feeling and then say it out loud. And don't do the thing that I do, which is like, well, here's how you can fix your problem.

No, do not go to problem fixing because it does not, A, it does not work. B, when it is time for problem fixing, people will start to bring up solutions instead of bringing up problems. Also, in most cases of pain, there is no easy solution. The job is not to find a solution. The job is to find less aloneness within it. Yeah, it just always seems like that's my, that's my default position is to be like, there's a problem. How do I solve it?

Yeah, I know. Well, we all want to like, yeah, we all want to make suffering go away. Um, and I think that's why often we, we minimize other people's pain or we, yeah, I mean, that's, that's totally human. Um, but I think empathic listening is the way. All right, we've got another question here. It's from Ryan who asks, Dear Hank and John, I notice that each individual tree changes color in its own time and at its own pace. It's not uncommon to see a tree whose leaves have entirely turned next to one whose leaves have barely begun to change.

Why is that? This person is referring to, of course, fall, a thing that happens in certain places, but not in others, and deciduous trees who remove a lot of the nutrients from their leaves when it is time for winter, and then shed those leaves so that they can, so that they don't have to protect those leaves

through the harsh winter season, and can remove and store some of the nutrients that were in them. And this is a fascinating thing, winter season and can remove and store some of the nutrients that were in them. And this is a fascinating thing, and it turns out it's super weird and fun and complicated, and it has to do with external factors, like microclimates that you might not even know are happening, where like, there's a tree on my street actually that there's a section of the tree that is near the street light, like there's a street light

right next to it, and those leaves change less quickly than the leaves all around because the street light produces some heat, which the leaves then interpret as not needing to get rid of their, they can still continue to photosynthesize for longer, which is actually true, and it works effectively for that tree, which is amazing that something that evolved so long ago can handle such a new addition to its lifestyle as a street light. And, but there's also... Oh my God, it's burning!

Thank you, John. It's also the fact that individual trees have different, like, they've stored different amounts of nutrients. They can take more or less risk because they know that they have, that they either need more photosynthesizing time or they don't. It's pretty amazing that trees are able to make

these sort of complicated decisions. Of course, they don't make them through what we would consider normal decision-making pathways but through direct biochemical pathways. But those biochemical pathways are very complicated and confusing and confusing, and we do not understand them completely. It is neat. And I've also seen pictures of trees that are like in a row,

and they're leading away from a building. And the one's closest, stay greenest longest because the building itself is radiating heat either because the heater is on and it is inefficient or because the sun is hitting the side of the building itself is radiating heat either because the heater is on and it is inefficient or because the sun is hitting the side of the building and it radiates back out during the night because it's some kind of large thermal mass. And I just think that it's cool. I love to observe fall, especially because I grew up in Florida where it didn't exist and now I'm in a place where fall does happen and is happening right outside my window.

And it's a lovely thing. Yeah, I am also a big fan of fall, though I did not know any of that before you told me. But it's interesting. I like obsessively trying to identify whether or not this is peak fall. So I will constantly say to my wife or my children, if you look outside right now, I think this might be peak fall. And then the next day, I will constantly say to my wife or my children if you look outside right now

I think this might be peak fall and then the next day. I'll be like nope This is peak fall, but then it always it always ends without me properly acknowledging peak fall I look out one day and and peak fall has passed as indeed it has here in Indianapolis It has here as well in Mizzula Montana as indeed it has here in Indianapolis. It has here as well in Mizzoula, Montana. And I would like to tell you, John, that this podcast is in fact brought to you by Peakfall. Peakfall.

Happening somewhere in the world, right this moment, but not in either Indianapolis or Mizzoula. And of course this podcast is also brought to you by, oh my god, it's on fire. This podcast is brought to you by running seven miles and then vomiting. Running seven miles and then vomiting, the only proper course of action after watching an ultra marathon documentary. And this podcast is brought to you by the AFC Wimbledon women's and girls teams. AFC Wimbledon women's and girls teams astonishingly spending more money on women's football

than Manchester United. All right, John, you got another question for us? Yeah, I do. This is a vital importance to me actually. It's one of those questions that seems small, but the more you think about it, the bigger it gets. It's from Aaron. Aaron writes, dear John and Hank,

as discovered in the course of recent events, I find too shameful to recount, it has become apparent that I have passed the prime of my Tetris playing career. And indeed, I've found myself at the mercy of a sharp, unforgiving decline in my skill at the timeless game. How can I come to terms with my newfound deficit of ability and reconcile my identity as a nerd fighter

in the face of this horrible crisis. So, Aaron, I don't know if you like me or 38 years old and in the midst of a midwife crisis or if you're a young person who just temporarily feels that your Tetris playing is not as good as it used to be, but there will come a day. I don't know whether it's actually come. Again, you might just be experiencing kind of a plateau in what will eventually be a massive Tetris roller coaster that only goes up. But at some point, the roller coaster will in fact go down

and you will get worse at Tetris. It's happened in my own life. And in general, this declining ability thing, you know, losing abilities and knowing that they're lost forever is very troubling to a lot of people. I think it's difficult to reconcile yourself to knowing that your health will never be as good as it once was, knowing that, you know, your Tetris playing will never be as good as it once was. So I don't really have any advice for you, but I do have quite a bit of empathy. I mean, there's also the fact that if I tend to lose abilities that I no longer find as valuable. And I, and I, and I, like, there's a piece of me that

wants to deny that, that is ashamed of it, and that, and that wants to honor my former self by holding on to those abilities and by mourning their loss. But when I look at how I'm behaving, I'm behaving in a way that says, like, here are the things that are important to me. And this thing isn't in the top 10 anymore, and so I'm not spending as much time on it. And so it may be that other things have become valuable to you and you should say to your former self, former self, you really liked Tetris. And I don't as much.

And that's okay. And we can still be friends. Yeah, like, like you are really, really good at Tetris, 16-year-old me, but you know what? I'm good at a bunch of things because I don't spend all my time playing Tetris, 16-year-old me, but you know what, I'm good at a bunch of things because I don't spend all my time playing Tetris. Yes, and I get to have experiences you never dreamed of. No, he probably dreamed of. Hank, we only have time for one more question before we get to the news from Mars and

the AFC Wimbledon. No, okay, this one's from Lauren who says, dear Hank and John, I'm getting a dog in a few weeks and I was wondering if you had any dubious advice about how to raise one. It seems this is the best place to find such advice. Thank you for your help. First off, Lauren, way to go coming to your favorite advice podcast for advice on raising a dog rather than any of the resources that are available to you on the internet.

Don't even look at that stuff. We've got all the answers right here at Dear Hank and John. Yeah, number one thing, all they want is for you to kiss them right on the lips and put their tongue and you're gonna get their tongue in your mouth. You might want to just put your whole mouth over their nose and mouth or ears. Tickle, they like to be tickled. you get their tongue in your mouth, you might want to just put your whole mouth over their nose and mouth or ears, tickle, they like to be tickled.

That's a big dog thing. And they're gonna poop a lot. So just get used to that idea. Yeah, I mean, the first thing that I would say is reconcile yourself to a new reality. You know, like currently, Lauren, you live presumably in a place where there's very little indoor out of toilet pooping, right?

Like almost all of the poop that's created in your house, I suspect goes directly into the toilet and then it just goes, you know, into the sewer system. If you live in Indianapolis, it then finds its way to the White River. But yeah, that's going to change. Suddenly you're going to be living in a house where there's a lot of poop. And you actually have to watch your step, less you make the situation worse by stepping in the poop and rubbing it into the carpet. So watch where you step, prepare yourself for a new world that involves quite a bit more indoor poop than you're used to and you know love love the dog love your dog even when it's

difficult because they will love you back not in the way that you love them and maybe not in the way that you want to be loved but in the way that suits them so yes ignore all other sources and there are so many to ignore of dog-related advice. Actually, you know what, here's a legitimate piece of advice that has helped me a great deal in my relationship with my dog. When I first got lemon, I went to a training class and the training class said to me, don't imagine that your dog thinks like a human. It doesn't. Dogs, imagine a dog's memory and thought process as a series of photographs. And they have a certain photograph

that they want to have happen more and certain photographs that they want to have happen less. And you want to build those stacks of photographs and enrich them with details so that your dog will know which photographs are good and which photographs are bad. And Lauren, I think we both have no idea what Hank is talking about, and I think you should probably seek out

the advice of experts. And you take the, so the photograph of your dog's good stuff is like treats and love and toys. And those things happen when good, when the dog, and you can like have the photograph of those things, also include things like not pooping in the house and sitting and being a good boy or girl. And then you have your bad photographs of not love

and angry human be associated with the moment of infraction when the pooping and peeing happens inside of the home. Or the barking or the bad thing that they are doing. This might be the most dubious advice in the whole history of our podcast. I'm sure that that makes sense to you. You're done, Mike. I'm completely sure. Oh my god, it's burning. I'm sure that that made sense to you and when it was explained to you, but something has gotten lost in translation. Seek the advice of an expert, Lauren, this

podcast is no place to come for dog advice. Hank, just crack it open and it's a bunch of pictures of what is the news from Mars. And the news from Mars, there is a new kind of engine that could take us to Mars better and faster. So the hard part of getting to Mars is that you have to push the stuff that you want to get to Mars there with fuel. In order to make thrust in space, you have to throw stuff out the back of your craft. You have to bring a long stuff to throw out the back.

Mostly how we do this is with chemical propulsion, where we burn things. When you burn things, they become much bigger, very fast. You use that to eject it out the back of a rocket and that's how you blow past stuff into space and they're around in space. But you can also use what's called an ion engine which are very cool and the way this works is by taking some kind of material atoms and you use an electric current You use a magnet to create a to create a magnetic field and that magnet field then blasts that material that usually it's ionized material out the back of the engine and the advantage of this is you can blast those those

Adams the stuff out the back much faster than you could blast Stuff out the back with a chemical you could blast stuff out the back with a chemical rocket. Because it's going faster when it leaves, it actually creates more thrust on the other ends so you have to carry less stuff to move things around more. I hope that made some kind of sense. The problem with ion engines is that they wear out very fast because you're bombarding lots of material with ultra-high energy radiation of and some kind and things break down really fast. They will not last

long enough to send to power a spaceship all the way to Mars. A new Ion engine has been developed that gets around this problem by cleverly bending magnetic fields and could potentially make it much easier to go to bars with much less money. Well, good luck with that. I have seen Wimbledon have won three games in a row, Hank. That's right. Three straight victories in those three games, Lyle Taylor, who you'll remember as the Montserratian International,

who plays his international football for the beautiful island of Montserrat in the Caribbean. Lyle Taylor has scored four goals in those three games and he scored against Hartlepool. We beat Hartlepool, who I believe are known as the the monkey hangers. Okay, I don't know if that's an offensive name or, but no, they appear to embrace it. Yes, monkey hanger is a term by which heart-lipplyans are often known. According to local folklore, the term originates from an incident in which a monkey was hanged in Hartlepool, England. That's hilarious.

During the Napoleonic Wars, a friendship of the type Chasse-Merre was wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool. The only survivor was a monkey, allegedly wearing a French uniform to provide amusement for the crew. On finding the monkey, some locals decided to hold an impromptu trial on the beach, since the monkey was unable to answer their questions, and because they had seen neither a monkey nor a Frenchman before, they concluded that the monkey was in fact a French spy, being found guilty, the animal was duly sentenced to death

and hanged on the beach. Well, that's some history that you really want to embrace, isn't it? Exactly, I'll tell you what, if that was part of my town's history, I would be sure to be known as the Hartlapool Monkey Hangers. So there you go. They hung a monkey because they thought it was a French spy. And now they know they're known as the Hartlepool Monkey hangers. Anyway, AFC Wimbledon, not the monkey hangers, one, two, nil. And now have won three games in a row, Hank, suddenly finding ourselves pretty close to the top of where we've ever been in the history of this club

Pretty pretty darn close to the best league position AFC Wimbledon has ever been in in its 12-year history Or 14-year history, I guess now 25 points From 16 games we're in 10th place, but we are only three points from third. We play Port Smith this week, which is a huge club that brings like 17,000 people to each of their games, but has fallen down the leagues because they went bankrupt and then they had to buy themselves. They're a fan-owned club like AFC Wimbledon. We play Port Smith this week.

If we win that game, we will be equal on points with the third place team in the league. Some pretty exciting stuff going on now just more than a quarter of the way through the AFC Wimbledon season. Oh, so there is still lots of time to go. Oh, there is a lot of football left to play Hank. Okay. Well, there's a lot of Mars left to play, Hank. Okay. Well, there's a lot of Mars left to play as well. Do you think that the guy, this, this, this Montserrati guy is, is, is the secret to your success? Well, Taylor. I mean, I definitely think he's scoring a lot of goals. And the goal, I have to say, you can look it up on YouTube. If you search AFC Wimbledon Heartlepool highlights, the goal that he scored to make it to

Neil, Calum Kennedy, long time AFC Wimbledon Wimbley-Wombley player in my FIFA series, Calum Kennedy scored the first goal off a very long free kick. But the second goal that Lyle Tangler scored was just an absolute beauty, terrible angle, winning off the inside of the post. It was truly epic. Yeah, so I think that I think he's the real deal and you know that's the kind of player that if we can hang on to To a player like that through the end of the season. We've already got a pretty strong Offense and the midfield's playing a lot better. So I think that we could be yeah, I mean who knows who knows

It's too soon to dream. That's all I'll say, but mean who knows who knows it's too soon to dream That's all I'll say but I'd love I'd love to be able to dream so on my dreaming scale Hank I'm currently dreaming about dreaming about dreaming about the possibility of well that it was a very very pretty goal I have to say though I'm a little afraid that one of his teammates was off sides just before it was scored. I'm not entirely sure how the rules of this game work, but it does not look like a technical legal goal to me. Oh, it was completely legal. Just one player can be off side.

They just can't play the ball or interfere with play. Okay. Well, then I think that it was fine. Good. I'm glad that you enjoyed that, Hank. I'm glad that you got to see it. This is, anyway, Wild Taylor is, oh, oh, that reminds me that I have to make a, I have to make a,

before we leave, I have to make a correction. As several viewers pointed out, I said that Wild Taylor, our Montserratian International, used to, used to play for Patrick Thistle in Scotland or somewhere. Anyway, that is incorrect. He used to play for Partick Thistle. And while reading, I transposed the R in the T because, you know, Patrick is a word that I know and Partick is not.

So there you go. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha No one scored on it's pretty it's I think it went off the post and then that there was an amazing save But it didn't help them John it didn't help them. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, they had a penalty kick Libertailer had a penalty kick and he kicked it off the post and then there was a rebound That we there was a great save by the Hartlepool goalkeeper else it would have been just re-nail So it's a great victory. Well love I now that I know that there's like there's highlights for every game. This is much more exciting for me. Yeah Why didn't why didn't you tell me about this before? It's like watching a whole soccer game in two minutes. I suppose it is.

It's very exciting. That was a very exciting two minutes for me. The number one comment on this video is, Lyle Taylor is the future. The number two comment is, Go Don's here because of John Green. That's good to hear. I believe that while Taylor is the future,

he's just 25 and I think he's the future, not just for AFC Wimbledon, but also for Montserrat in their long shot effort to make the 2018 World Cup. Well, I have no idea how that works. What did we learn today, John? Well, we learned that John Keats, it's a bit of a dark soul before he died at the age of 26.

Yes, and his books are available to you after his death if you are a friend. We also learned, of course, that, oh my god, it's burning! I hope not, I hope Claire got through this entire episode without burning anything. Let's cross our fingers that the pizza is come out just fine and she's enjoying it and not burning the roof of her mouth right now. Did we learn anything else here is that all? We learned about empathic listening,

which is a life skill that I would like to develop with the help of my brother, John. And we learned about trees and why they turn leaves, which I'd never really known about until I had the help of my brother, Hank. And we learned that the inside of a dog's brain is just a bunch of pictures. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Oh boy, thanks for listening to our podcast, Dear John and Hank, or possibly Dear Hank and John. If you want to send us questions, please do so. The email address is Hank and John at gmail.com. You can also find us on the Twitter. You can use the hashtag, Dear Hank and John. I'm John Green on Twitter, Hank is Hank Green. He wants you to know that he is also Hank

GRE on Snapchat. This podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins, the theme music is by Gunnarola, and as they say in our hometown. Oh my god, it's Murray! you