Dear Hank & John - 250: Carl Yastrzemski's Business School

Episode Date: July 27, 2020

How do I live the dream of not having a job? What's the history of mouth cleaning? Do authors get to choose the font of their books? Why are piggy banks shaped like pigs? How do you feel about sibling comparisons? How finite is the atmosphere? Hank Green and John Green have answers! If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail]. Join us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Oh, I prefer to think of it dear. Oh god. How is it still? Wow, no. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you to be a advice and don't talk about the news at all because this is our special untethered in time addition. That's right. Podcasts that we are recording just in case, we are not able to record, but we would still like an episode to go live. So welcome to this moment, everyone.

It's so exciting, John. It's so wonderful to be untethered from time at last. Time which has for so long, that is to say, about the last 13 weeks, then quite the tether is now a complete untether. I am free. I am on board.

I no longer exist inside of time or space. I am merely a consciousness. There is this podcast alone in the world. I believe Ralph Waldo Emerson described it as a gigantic naked eye in one of the most memorable and gross lines in transcendent literature. John, yeah. Speaking of being untethered in time, do you know what the best time of the day is?

Pfft. Yeah, I mean, I do. It's like the two or three seconds after I wake up, but before the dread descends. Does that have any at 6.30? Because I think that the best time of day is 6.30, hands down. 6.30 hands down. Oh, the hands of the clock.

Yeah, they're down. That's when the hands are down. I thought it was some kind of like, you know, like symbol that the TikTok kids throw out with their hands. Oh yeah, they put their hands down. And that's one thing I've noticed about TikTok is that they throw their hands in every possible direction. Yeah, I've started to like TikTok, by the way.

Uh oh. Well, let me phrase that differently. I don't like TikTok. What I like is feeling distracted from the way down I like his feeling distracted from the way down worry that consumes the rest of my waking hours. I like the creative people. I like watching people be creative in an attempt to distract me. People do all kinds of wonderful things with TikToks, although then they also do just incredibly stupid things.

It's so it can be infuriating. It really is a mirror that we hold up to ourselves and what we see is both beautiful and foolish, which reminds me that Hank's book of beautifully foolish and devery is out now. Yeah, it is. It may have been released two weeks ago. It may have been released a thousand weeks ago. This episode is untethered in time. The only thing you know is that the book, this was recorded after the book came out. That's all you know. All right, Hank, let's answer some questions

from our listeners. This first one is from Courtney who writes, Dear John and Hank, what do you do when your dream job is not having a job? I've never had an answer to the question about what my dream job was, not even when I was a kid. I just can't believe that my dream has to be working

for someone else for a large majority of my life. And my destined to be miserable forever, or should I just start wandering the earth like a weird Victorian ghost? I would probably be okay with that job actually. Courtney, that doesn't pay great. Courtney, I don't know if there's a job in writing pleasantly written emails that end with a great joke, but if there is, you are a very solid applicant for it. Yeah. I kind of remember this feeling.

So deep down, Hank, I always had just one dream for my job. And so I don't know how to answer this question because I never, from the time I was seven or eight, I never thought about wanting to have another job other than being a writer. Wow. Well, I mean, I expected to have other jobs

and indeed, like I have and have had other jobs, but I wanted to be a writer. Well, that is not my experience. I have had dozens of different dream jobs and then I get them and I'm like, eh, you know, that's a job. Turns out that that's, there's good parts and bad parts. I like the majority of the days,

but certainly not the vast majority of them. And that's fine. That's, I'm happy for that. I think that's the case with most dream jobs though. Like I think that's the case with most dream jobs, though. Like, I think that's the case with most jobs that are fulfilling in general. Like, I've never come across a job that is pure joy. I know some people have them,

but like, most jobs involve like paperwork that you might find unpleasant or they involve dealing with customers that you might find unpleasant. And that's just, as part of what you sign up for in exchange for, you know, turning your labor into food that you can eat. Yeah, I mean, here's what I'll say, Courtney,

the part of the job that should be the dream is, and this is what we're all going for, is not the part where we're getting paid for it. It's the part where we're making life better for some other people in some way. And that's what jobs are, Is there like problem-solving for other people? But sometimes people are getting paid to do stuff that doesn't actually help. And that's like, that to me is not the dream. And occasionally, you get paid a lot of money to do

that, to do things that are not actually really clearly helping anyone, but I think that there are a lot of opportunities to help people and get paid for it. And for me, that's what a job is. And I do like helping people. And if I can sort of like latch onto that and focus on that rather than the job part of the job, I think that's ultimately what most of us end up doing because ultimately that's where we actually find value, is knowing that we're helping out other people because we, you know, people need help. That said, most people work because they have to work. Of course. Yeah.

And, you know, and you try to find meaning and ways of being constructive within the work that you have to do because you have to work. But it's okay, to me, it's okay to work because you have to work. And you don't have to orient your entire life around what you do for a living. You don't have to orient your entire identity

around what you do for a living. So like, just because you don't have a dream job doesn't mean you don't have dreams. It just means that your dreams aren't you know, yoked to capitalist notions of how we assign value to other people. Yeah, and there are lots and lots and lots of ways to help people that don't pay. And I think that we all we all do that work for our friends, for our families, for our communities. So if you don't want to have a job and you don't have to have a job, don't, yeah, somebody else can have that job. I'm thinking about retiring Courtney.

I'm just, I bring it up, but, but I do think, I do think that we, that it is, I have found that if I don't have something that I'm kind of doing, that that is sort of a recipe for sad. Does that resonate with you, John? Oh, absolutely. It's just that I'm in a place in my life where I should be focusing on doing the work that provides most value to other people

and not focusing on work that provides value to me. So, and I'm trying to do that. I hope that this podcast provides more value to other people than it provides to me. To be fair, in terms of compensation, I hope that this podcast provides more value to other people than it provides to me. To be fair, in terms of compensation, it provides no value to me. All right, this next question comes from Sarah who writes, Dear John and Hank, it's obvious that our mouths are gross.

Thank you, Sarah. Thank you for just getting the fundamental fact of being a human right out there in the open at the beginning of your email. So right in the middle of our face, you gotta gross hole. Right, if you were designing people from the ground up, why would you say like, okay, so your second grossest hole is going to be right in the middle. And it's not only that,

it's gonna be right beneath your smelling organ. Yeah, and also you're gonna use it to do all of your communication. And also, it's gonna be kinda cute, but it's gross, but it's kinda cute. Hmm, I don't agree really with the last part. Anyway, our mouths are gross, it need to be brushed every morning.

So now we're in the habit of it. But what's the history of people keeping their teeth or mouth fresh and clean? Keep it aquifresh, Sarah. Oh, I mean, so much. And yeah, like this isn't a new problem. Like toothpicks in particular have been a thing for a really long time.

We keep like thousands of years old toothpicks because when you get something stuck in there, it's like, well, what do I do about that? Well, you make a toothpick. There are also written tooth care descriptions from 2,500 years ago. And Hippocrates recommended some dry toothpaste, which was like a powder that you push,

put in your mouth and scrub around like, like, comment in your sink, but not comment. Don't put comment in your mouth. Yes, that's a great idea, Hank. Also, don't follow any of Hippocrates, medical advice. Good call. Yeah.

But yeah, this is, it is a very old problem for humans, not least because for a long time, a very significant cause of death was abscessed teeth because it would often be staff infections and those staff infections would often spread into the bloodstream and that was fatal. So real close to the brain. It doesn't have a long way to go to get up in the blood. Yeah.

No, I had an infection behind my eye called orbital cellulitis, and the whole reason they were worried about it was because it was really close to my brain. They showed me on a scan. They were like, look how close this pocket of infection is to your brain. And I was like, does it really work that way? Like the bacteria, like,

don't have another way to get in except via proximity? And they were like, yes, it really does work that way. Yeah, so tooth infections are a big deal and you should go to the doctor. The tooth doctor, we have a separate person for that. They're called dentists. If you have that problem. Thanks for that. Also for that piece of trivia.

Look, it just seems very odd to me. I know, that's fine. It's fine. You see, it's seems very odd to me. That's fine. It's fine to find it odd. It's what seemed odd to me is that you felt informed to give a little more background to our listeners about what tooth doctors are called. Wow. It's just what happened.

They were also early replacement teeth so that you can put some teeth in there. Yeah. That's been going on for a long time. And I'm sure not in a particularly healthy way. There are lots of reasons that I would prefer to be alive now and not to die of a two-navces.

Maybe like a year and a half ago. You know, I used to say like, oh, there's no past I would wanna go back to. John, this episode is untethered in time. Maybe things are better now. Oh, that's true. That's true. No, you're right, it's untethered in time.

And so it's possible that by saying, I want to go back in time a year and a half ago, everyone listening is going to be like, oh, wait, why? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, wow, bold. That seems like a real bad call. Yeah, we're giving you more and more clues as to when this was recorded. It's probably gonna come out in like one week. The biggest clue will be that we won't wait

more than three weeks before I'll put it again. This next question comes from Ellie, who writes, dear John and Hank, I love font design and I think it's an important part of any text. I was wondering if authors have a say in what font their book is published in. And if so, do you have a go-to choice? No, and I don't, I have no, so like, I try, I was like, you do have some say.

Well, no one informed me that I had any say, and I once had to design a book for like a merch thing, and I was like, oh, this is hard. Very hard. This is complex. And no matter what I do, this looks bad. And I have no idea how to make it look not bad. Yep, but it always looks bad. Yeah, yeah.

My experience has been that book designers are like highly skilled professionals and almost all the time, they make the choices that they do for good reasons, and almost all the time, the fonts that I might propose in lieu of the font that was chosen would have made the book worse. So I do have some level of choice

because I know the designer at Dutton and I've worked with her. And so when she's working on an initial design concept, she'll send a few of them to me or my editor will send a few of them to me. And I'll look at a few different fonts and I'll express a preference, but it's always offered with the awareness that I, you know, bring absolutely no expertise to the question. Yeah, and I even have a little bit of design training, but basically what happens is they send you a designed book and you can comment upon it. And I guess you could probably be like, I love this

book design. Can you look at the design of that they did here? And that might inform it. But if you're like skilled and you have a lot of typography experience, it may be that you can come in and be like, here's the weird thing that I want to do or the interesting thing I want to do. And it's almost like there are certain places where you don't want to experiment too much because the point is for the text to disappear. But there are areas where you can have a little bit more fun with chapter headings or with

like, I don't know what they're called, but like at the top left and right, there's like the book title oftentimes. And you can have a different font. But the idea is for the book to disappear. So you don't want it to be interesting. You want it to be good. So funny story about that. I always really, I don't know why, but I always really wanted

That like that part at the top or the bottom. I don't know what it's called either the header in the footer I think it's what it's called. I always really wanted I felt like in like fancy proper literary works of fiction literary works of fiction on the left side of the header or footer, depending on design, is the title, and then on the right side is the name of the author. So that every other page, there's just a little reminder of who wrote the book that you're reading. It was literally not something you would notice if you read a book until you're like,

oh, you're right. It is that there. No, unless you're like wildly narcissistic, right? And so I remember asking Julie Straskable when looking for Alaska was first being published back in like 2004. I was like, can I have my name on the header? And she was like, no, it looks so bad. It's so, it's so cringey. And I was like, no, it looks so bad. It's so, it's so cringey. And I was like, no, it looks awesome.

You know, just that little green every other page. And she was like, it really doesn't look good. We're not going to do it. And we didn't, right? I mean, I think it's fairly common that the author's name is on the header. It is me. I agree, it is fairly common.

So why not me? I just picked up three books and they all have the author and the header. Well, you're of course a beautifully foolish endeavor has your author name not only in the header but like centered and italicized and in bold. I know, it's a lot, it's a lot. I don't know.

I finally got my name into the header but it took me like four novels. Yeah, and like, of course this is something that literally no reader has ever noticed. Yeah, yeah, like I didn't, I didn't notice it until you brought this up and I took out my book and I was like, wow, that's really up there. It's kind of no nonsense.

Yeah, they'd like you to know that Hank Green wrote this book. And there's so many things about bookmaking that I love because it is such an old technology and it's a technology that's been around forever. So the innovations, while they are very, very small in the scheme of things, they just bring me such joy. Like, there's an indented, there's an indented daisy on the inside cover of the first printing of Looking for Alaska.

And it just makes me so happy. Yeah, I got an indented car on the first printing of absolute remarkable thing. And then I did not get an indented anything because they were like, we need to save every penny we can right now. And I was like, gotcha. Cool.

That's fine. I understand. Although apparently they didn't need to save the money that they could have saved on not having your name printed in bold every other page. I don't think that was a big expense. They're already printing stuff on that paper. Anyway, except for the part where I get paid one penny every time anyone writes my name. Anyway, by, uh, anyway, by my first three novels, you won't even know that they're by me. We, we did have a little bit of a fight initially. They wanted my name to be bigger than the title on the book, and I was like, I don't like it.

I don't like that. I don't like what that says. Yeah. I am a strong believer in, um, name under title and name no bigger than title. Yep, yep, that was a fight. They want to name over title and I was like, I'm sorry, that's not on the table. Which you do have control over some things.

And that's not about Hank or I being modest or anything? No, it's that would be the generous way of reading it, but what it's really about is Hank and I feeling shame. Yes. We don't wanna feel shame every time we look at the book and that's what we would feel if our names were too big. Yeah. In fact, I feel it a little bit when I look at the cover

of Turtles All the Way Down and the Fall of Noir Stars because my name is the same size. In looking for Alaska, on the front cover, my name is maybe in an eight point font. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's just as it should be. Yeah, it just keeps getting bigger though.

Well, every time they reprint it. No, that's true. That's true. The more recent editions of Looking for Alaska have overemphasized it, I think. But the good news Hank is that I'm on the other side of that mountain. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

God, it really is tiny. From here on out, my name just gets smaller and smaller with each passing book. Okay. For that original hardcover, it is a teeny tiny little John Green. I mean, the title is also tiny. Yeah. It's mostly dominated by smoke, which I think is appropriate. Yes. Okay. So, so in short, we don't get to pick the font, but also we shouldn't be allowed to pick the font. John, this next question comes from TQ, who asks, steer hank and john, why are piggy banks universally piggy banks?

Why are pigs that chose an animal? If you were to choose an animal to replace the pig, which animal would that be? TQ, well first it's not universal. I've definitely have, and seen piggy banks that are various shapes, but it is definitely,

even those are called piggy banks. Yeah. Why are they called piggy banks. Yeah. Why are they called piggy banks? They're called, we don't know. Oh, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there

is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there is a, there someday know the answer. But one guess is that there's a type of clay called pig clay, which is pygg, and it's used to make earthenware.

So like, you know, plates and dishes and stuff. And it was also made used to make pots. And they would, people would just like be like, okay, I'm gonna put my coins into this pot. And this would be my pig bank. Possibly is where that came from. But it seems like the existence of using a thing to store your money in goes back before pig clay existed. But maybe the transition was like, and then you would just call that sort of happened and then pig clay happened. They called it a pig bank

and then they started to like make it into the shape of a pig because they called it a pig bank. That's one thought, but there are others, including the fact that in China, the pig is a symbol of affluence and that that may have transported along trade routes to with like these things that are designed to be sold

so that you can store your money in them until you need the money and then you destroy them. Which we have ruined by the way. Yeah. Now we have this little plug. Yeah. Because the original idea of the piggy bank was that you had to destroy the bank to get the money out, which made it an effective savings tool because you would think like, well,

I want 10 cents, but not enough to destroy the piggy bank. Right. Now, the piggy bank has been destroyed on many different levels. There's a little plug at the bottom that allows the money to just fall out, which makes the piggy bank sort of useless as a savings tool. And then there's the fact that coins aren't worth anything. And in many cases, coins are worth negative money because it takes like two cents to make one penny. Yeah. And it takes like takes like two cents to make one penny. Yeah.

And it takes like eight point two cents to make one nickel. And so the continued existence of piggy banks is like an anachronism. Yeah, you have to put dollars in there. Right. You know, it's not just coins. You know, an interesting fact about Hank is that when he was a kid, he did not keep his money in piggy banks because he knew that that was not safe. And so what he did instead was he had all these trophies, not from finishing first place.

He had all these like fourth place. Like everybody got a trophy at the soccer thing. Yeah. He had a lot of trophies that every other player on the soccer team also got. Yeah. Those are the kinds of trophies he had, but he had a number of them. And he would unscrew the trophies and unscrew all the parts of them, and then there would be these little hollow spheres.

And he would roll up bills very methodically and then stuff them inside of these hollow spheres. Yeah. And then he had his, he had money like hidden inside of his walk man. I remember. Yeah. He had like a cassette tape walk man. And he had like a $20 bill like carefully folded,

like right in the base of the Walkman. I was super annoyed. And all of this, all of these strategies were designed to prevent me from stealing Hank's money. And part, and part it was just like my obsession and like over and like kind of like troubling obsession with the being surrounded by money. Not like the things you might buy with it, but just the money, like Scrooge, McDuck.

And when did that end? Yeah, we're working on it. Right. Hank would go to all these elaborate lengths to hide his precious, precious money. I mean, he treated every nickel, like Frodo treats the ring. I mean, he, I've never seen anything like it.

He just coveted, coveted all forms of money, and he never spent any of it. I didn't want other people's money. I wanted my money. I didn't covet money. I know, but you wanted as much of it as possible. I wanted it. And you wanted to never spend any of it

ever no matter what. Yeah, I got over that. And when I got an Imagine the Gathering. Because then I was like, these cards will be worth money someday. And they would have been if I hadn't traded them and sold them for like basically the same amount I bought them before, I could have been a contender.

I could have had a selling like original, reserved shiv and dragons and syngere vampires. The reason I'm telling this story, Hank keeps trying to do rail, is that Hank would like go out on a play date or for a bike ride or something and out of unscrew those trophies, and I would like carefully pull out the 20s

and maybe replace them with a five. And then I would go buy stuff because that's the purpose of money. Money exists to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. And I bought stuff. Did I feel guilty? Yes, I felt guilty.

I mean, part of me felt like his money was our money, a feeling that I still have. Right. Like, part of me felt like his money was our money, a feeling that I still have. Right. Like, part of me felt like our family's money is our family's money and like the fact that this amount has been assigned to Hank is unfair anyway. Yeah.

Because he has so much more than I do. Does he have more than I do? Because I spent a bunch, yes, but like still, he has so much more. So I did this for years. I felt terrible about it, but I kept doing it because it was very convenient. And also, like a lot of times I had to buy things that were illicit, you know, that like I didn't want my parents to know about. So I couldn't like go to my parents

and be like, hey, can I borrow $8 for four packs of cigarettes? And so I did this for many years. And I always felt really bad about it until, yeah, well, this is the thing. Summer, I forgive you for stealing my money. Do you forgive me for selling your Carl Yostremsky rookie card? You sold my Carl Yostremsky rookie card. You sold all my baseball cards, thanks. So to give you a full accounting of which baseball cards you sold, I would have a full accounting of which baseball cards you sold, I would have to list all of the baseball cards I had,

which was many, many thousands. Yeah, but the Carl Yostrymsky was the most valuable one. I don't think I sold thousands, because I don't think people wanted all of them. But you had these things that were basically money, but you couldn't spend them. That's true. In the end, what you did to me was very similar to what I did to you.

And the value proposition is probably about equal. There is one big difference. Like a good God-fearing American, when I stole money from you, Hank, I spent it immediately. Whereas when you sold those baseball cards on eBay this summer that I wasn't living in Orlando without my permission, you still have that money. But I haven't spent a dollar of it. I've learned to do it.

I've learned to do it. It's probably invested in some solar stock right now. I learned about commerce and business and how to run a small business. And it was really valuable. Thank you, John, for helping me learn. It's true. The first company that Hank was the CEO of

was called Selling John's Baseball Cards Limited. Yeah, which reminds me that this podcast is brought to you by John's Baseball Cards Limited. John's Baseball Cards, probably somebody's still got that Carl Ustrimsky somewhere. It wasn't, it was also every member of the 1986 Chicago Cubs. There's a Mark Grace rookie card, a Johnny Bench rookie card.

Oh, Andre Dawson, Andre Dawson rookie card. Oh my God. Oh wow, John, a Carl Ustrimsky is worth like $330. Now, hmm, well, must be great for that guy who bought it for $14 on eBay. It was more than that. Today's buy guess is also brought to you by Andre Dawson.

Andre Dawson, he had a wonderful career for the Chicago Cubs and I was his huge, huge. And I had a signed baseball card from him that I treasured and kept separate from my other baseball cards until one day I came home from summer camp. And they were all gone. If I guys does also brought to you by a weird Victorian ghost, a weird Victorian ghost. It's a career that you can't really test into yet.

You have to make it for yourself. You. Hahaha. Oh, and lastly, this podcast is brought to you by being untethered in time. Untethered in time. It's really the only good time right now. Whoa. So hopefully, hopefully,

I'll just laugh. We also have a project for awesome message from Dave to Jenna. Dear Jenna, you are an awesome daughter and an amazing person. I'm so proud of you, especially your decision to major in education and to become a teacher. Your students are going to look up to you and there'll be better people for having known you, just like I'm a better person for having known you. You are literally making the world a better place every day.

Love, Davey. Ah. No, it's very sweet. Ah. That gave me hope, John. It's possible that we mispronounce Jenna's name. But only because I found the pronunciation guide very confused. It's a terrible guide.

You say I should pronounce it Jenah. Jenah. Which is Jenah. Yeah, Jenah. But not Jenah. But not. Which is is Jen-a. Yeah, Jen-a. But not Jen-a, which is how Jen-a is pronounced. But it's not. So maybe it's Jen-a, Jen-a. Jen, Jen, Jen-a.

Jen, Jen, Jen-a. But not like Jen-a. Jen-a. If the focus is on the Jen rather than the A, then it's Jen-a. Jen-a. Dear Jen-a, Jen-a. This next question comes from P and K, who write, dear John and Hank, other than the awe that it's Jenna. Jenna. Dear Jenna. Jenna. This next question comes from P and K,

who write, dear John and Hank, how do you deal with comparisons and seeing yourself in the context of your sibling? Do you ever get competitive? Is it ever hard? Pumpkins, penguins, and self-importantly, I guess, P and K. Oh, it's good.

You're allowed to. Oh, you're allowed to sign your own emails. Yeah. Yeah. Without feeling like you're being overly self-important. Did you say that this was? I mean, I insisted on my name being published on every other page of my fourth book. Did you mention that they were sisters? P and K are two people who were sisters? Two, yes. P and K are two people who are quote, freakishly close sisters. Mm-hmm. I think not just with siblings, but in all things,

comparison is a really easy trap to fall into and one that almost never results in productivity or joy. Long-term productivity anyway. I definitely have used it as fuel for short-term productivity, but it has never made me happier. Never. Yeah, no, it is a fuel that burns, but it burns very dirty. And it makes all kinds of problems in the rest of my life when I use it as a fuel. Yeah. I remember feeling competitive with people. And I remember feeling frustrated by my weaknesses and my failures and what I saw as

a lack of ability or lack of talent or lack of access to the levers of power, you know, that other people at my college had when they got all these fancy internships or whatever. I definitely remember that feeling. I've mostly, since I entered the workforce, I've mostly felt competitive with myself. I've mostly, I've mostly been interested in what I can do. And that, that works for me. I guess the obvious question is like whether I feel competitive with Hank and I really don't, and I think there's a lot that goes into that and I don't, I don't think it could be distilled into a single podcast question answer, but I think the biggest reason for it is that I genuinely,

all the way down, see Hank's success as my success, and I am happy for it. And all the way down, he sees Carl Ustrimsky's rookie card as my rookie card, too. All the way to his core. Deep. And no way does he question that. Yeah, I guess. But I know, but I do like when Hank does something, I don't feel jealous. I feel happy. Like and and work has gone into that. I think both of us have worked on that over the years. But that's how I feel because because it's it's an occasion for celebration. And also because Hank and I are good at different things

and that's wonderful. Yeah, yeah, that's how I've always felt is just like, wow, how lucky that that happened to John and not someone else. Yeah, and I also think there's an element of Hank and I genuinely not wanting the other's success. Like, I think that they're aspects. And also seeing the times when like even like you get to see the times when I don't want my own success.

And I get to see the times when you don't want your own success. And that sort of like makes it clear that whatever that thing that you call success actually is, maybe is actually something else. And there's more than like my own interfacing with it, watching people become very, very, what would be considered successful, but still be very, very self-destructive and sad, makes me realize that like,

that doesn't solve all the problems. Like what solves the problems is stability. And like, it's striving constantly for something else doesn't get you there. Yeah, I think what solves the problems is core relationships. Yeah. All right, Hank, we have a question from Cody who writes, dear John and Hank, how finite is the atmosphere?

We as a species seem to be headed rapidly toward an age where we will be spending more and more time in space. Yeah, Cody, I would say not that rapidly and not that much more time. Who knows? Don't believe everything Elon Musk tells you or arguably anything. Every crude spacecraft will have to take a portion of the Earth's atmosphere with it. How many simultaneous crude space flights can occur before the atmosphere is so thin as to have a negative impact on the biosphere.

Breathlessly curious Cody. I love him, I love you. Cody, I love your vision for the future. We're just like, start taking it out and we're like, wait, wait, hey, that last one was too much. We need that back. Right. Come back.

Yeah, well, I've always said that like all the water on Earth stays on Earth because of the hydrological cycle, but that does fail to account for the water that goes up into space and stays there. True. Which is a few gallons every time. So there are two things here. One is that the atmosphere is finite, and there is only a finite and infinite. Those are the only two things.

So there's not really degrees of that. But it is very compared to the size of a spaceship very large. So we would have to move a lot of spaceships out into off-earth and take atmosphere with them to a lot, like way more than we're going to. But even though that could eventually happen, it won't happen because we can make atmosphere out of stuff. The main thing that we can make atmosphere out of is water, and we can get water from space. Water is plentiful in the asteroid belt, and so there's

a lot of thought about in this potential future that Cody is imagining, that there would be a lot of space travel, that we would find water by going to the asteroid belt and mining water there, which we would then use for everything. So we would use the water to drink, of course. We would use the water to help grow food. We would also use the water. We'd split it into hydrogen oxygen and make that into fuel to continue driving us around in the solar system.

And then we would also use the oxygen part of that water to breathe. And then we could mix that with a number of other things here on Earth, it's nitrogen, but you could also just have a be a little pressure environment with a lot of oxygen, though that's bad for fires, or you could mix it with a number of inert things that you might find out in the solar system to breathe along with oxygen. One of the early things that they used for that, because it's light, is helium, and there actually is a lot of helium in the solar system, though it's not super easy to get to, the problem of that is that yes, you do breathe helium all day and so you sound funny.

But I guess people just get used to that. And all of that Cody is just over the horizon after we figure out how to deal with a single strand of RNA that has completely reshaped human history. It's all two problems at the same time, John. It's okay. We can work on both. Hank, before we go, I need to let you know one thing. You recently revealed that you often respond to letters

by signing just the letter H on account of how you are so busy. How recently? This is untethered in time. That could have been years ago. Well, recently, everything's recent, Hank. I mean, it's true. On a geological time. On a geological time.

On a geological time. On a geological time. On a it's true. On a geological fact. And we've only been around for 250,000 years, okay? So I'm saying that it was in the last 800 years, which is to say the last, like, 2% of human history. It's a blink, okay. Yes, in the last blink of a historical eye, you said that you sign your emails, and I guess I should explain what emails are,

in case we're in the very distant future, and we've embraced different technologies. You signed your correspondence that was delivered electronically through tubes before all of that stuff fell apart and we just became like a series of creatures living in hunter-gatherer communities that somehow still had access to podcasts. You signed these ancient missives with the letter H because you didn't have time to write out your entire name because that's just how busy you are. Abby, Abby wrote in to say something very important. She says, Hank, I don't know how to break this to you,

but I do not think of you when I read letters signed with the letter H. I think of Harry Styles. He signs off as H and he gets to because he is Harry Styles. And then Abbey writes, I'm just going to quote her directly, Hank, you are not Harry Styles. In that respect, I feel like the sign off Hank is sufficient for you and it's only three more letters. I'm sorry about this news. Best wishes, Abby. Okay.

I accept. I accept. I'm glad to have been put into my place and have since that conversation is seriously signed off Hank every single time with a capital H even. Which just goes to show you that mortification works everybody does. It really does. Alright, Hank, well it's been an absolute pleasure to have a discussion with you untethered in time I'm feels very tethered really looking forward to turning off the microphone and finding out where I am in time at the moment

Fingers crossed for 2019 Sorry, hey, we're looking for times. I don't know I might go I'm like go all of x 2015 Well, I don't know. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, go all the way back to 2015. Well, I don't know Hank. I won't know until I end the podcast. So it's time to end the podcast so that I can find out where I am in history. John, thank you for being untethered in time with me. This podcast was edited by Joseph Tune a Mettish. It was produced by Rosiana Hallsrow-Hasson-Shared and Gibson. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. The music you're hearing now is by the great gunerola, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.