Dear Hank & John - 296: The Y'all Call

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

How do I avoid grieving the living? What's up with Dr Pepper Zero? Would explosions have flames in space? Who is "y'all"? Can a box be round or oval? How can water be oxygen rich? How do you keep one perfect book from ruining all others for you? Hank Green and John Green have answers!If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams and an exclusive weekly podcast at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

Hey, quick, cold open to let you know that I am on the podcast work life with Adam Grant. It's one of my favorite podcasts. Actually, Adam is an organizational psychologist and I recently went on a show to talk about some of the ideas in the Anthropocene Reviewed book and also to talk about ideas about work and life and other things. So I've included a little bit of that conversation. I think about six minutes of it at the end of this show. So enjoy the show and then at the end,

there will be a bonus, the beginning of my conversation with Adam Grant on Work Life and you can listen to my episode of Work Life or other episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, here's the show. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ [♪ OUTRO and so I didn't have a Father's Day dad joke. Yeah. But it's actually become really clear to me when a joke becomes a dad joke, John.

And that's when it becomes apparent. Oh, God. I mean, it was pleasantly meta. I guess. If I'm going to think of, I'm trying. I'm trying to compliment all of your dad jokes just to try to emphasize to you the parts that are good in the hopes that you can maybe find that cut out some of the other parts. Okay. But what I've noticed, and I say this with a tremendous amount of love,

I've noticed that you have no desire to get better. I met a guy at the farmer's market who better. I met a guy at the farmer's market who actually opened for the doors. This is true. He opened for the doors. I was talking to him. He was playing music and he was like, oh, because he was saying like, what are my son's favorite bands? He could play one of their songs. And I was like, well, he likes the doors. He probably knows some doors songs. And I'm not even lying. This is all true. And he was like, I opened for the Dora's back in the 60s. And I was like, wow, that's amazing. And then he said, yeah, yeah, we supported them on a short like the tour.

Our band was called the Hinges. All of that was true, except for the part that his band was called the Hinges. Oh, I bet he'd told that joke a number of times before, but he didn't tell that joke. I made that joke. Oh, I bet he'd told that joke a number of times before but see no I made I he didn't tell that joke. I made that joke Oh Okay, well that now you're there. Oh, I'm sorry. I think I got confused. I didn't think that I'd signed up for two dad jokes I don't know for me. I'm gonna say that one for next week. I guess for me father's day is not about two dad jokes

Let's please move on. It was great seeing you in real life. It was such a joy. I have not seen your son in two years, which is half of his life. And he is a completely different person now, of course. And my kids are completely different and then being together was just the most.

Oh God, so far. It was just so joyful. I felt, so fun. It was just so joyful. I felt, I mean, honestly, I felt, I'd never felt like that before. It was just wonderful to say. I was so proud of my kids for the way that they included in Made Space for Orin. And I was also so proud of Orin

for being able to interact with and play with in meaningful ways with these much older children. It was just awesome. Great time with family. I knew in the abstract that I would be able to feel that way again at some point in the future, but actually experiencing it, experiencing that joy, experiencing being able to be with people I love together

safely is an incredible feeling. And I know for lots of people listening to this, it's an incredible feeling that is still not available to you. And I'm really sorry. But I'm sharing this joy in the hopes that it can be a reminder that that this is temporary. And that the the light soak days are coming. Indeed. And I felt so like a dad is the thing that I felt. Yeah. And which is funny because of course I'm always a dad. But it was just like remembering the times when we would hang out with our cousins

because that was such a fairly unusual thing. It would happen, you know, maybe once a year. And that I was like, oh, I'm watching that happen. Like I remember that. I remember that thing where your cousin is an important person, you know, for some folks it was for us. And like you get this family relationship that is like not all the time, but is a peer relationship. And so like like having

that for the first time was like, oh, I'm doing like dad stuff. And also I could we could like let them sit together and just like hang out. Yeah, they didn't really want to. Yeah, they didn't want to talk to us really. Yeah, which was great. They wanted to do their own stuff. I want to talk to you. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that from being a kid too, that like when your cousins are there, like you just want to hang out with them and it was awesome. So I'm really glad that we got that time. I'm also happy to be home.

As long as I've gone without being in my bed since I think 2018. So, but it was great trip. And I look forward to going back to Missoula as soon as possible. In the meantime, though, let's answer some questions from our listeners beginning with Jess, who writes, dear John and Hank, my rabbit, Sheamus, is probably dying. I love Sheamus so much. I don't want to be sad during the time I have left with him, but I feel like I'm already

grieving his loss. How do you keep yourself from grieving the living? Who's that girl? It's Jess. Oh man, is this so true? In the sort of end years, when you start to, you can't have just a pure joy of the relationship because you are seeing the end of the relationship.

And so you can only really have that. If you are imagining that relationships have that arc and that they kind of have really have that. Yeah. If you are imagining, imagining that relationships have that arc and that they kind of have to have that arc. Yeah, but you could feel the same thing at the beginning of a relationship, right? Like that you know it's gonna end and you're still able to enjoy it. So I think there's a couple things for me anyway

that are happening when I'm experiencing this sort of pre-greaf or whatever. The first thing is that in many cases, I'm experiencing this sort of pre-greif or whatever. The first thing is that in many cases, there are losses to grieve before the ultimate loss. Like, Shamus may not be able to play with you in the way that you or Shamus enjoyed the most because Shamus is sick now and maybe disabled

or may slow down in some ways or whatever. And so it's important to remember that death is not the only loss in life, and it's obviously a really important one. And, but there are other losses that we all go through and we experience, and those need to be grieved and honored as well a lot of times.

But the other thing for me is that even though, of course, the whole time you've had shameless, you've known that shameless was far more likely to die, before you than the other way around, you've been able to sort of ignore that fact. And then as somebody gets older or as an animal gets older, it becomes harder to ignore that fact. But it becomes harder to ignore that fact. But there is still value and joy in the relationship. And that, for me, is the thing that I try to focus on. It does not do me any good to try to push down my grief

and not feel it. It doesn't work. Maybe it works for other people, it doesn't work for me. But if I can allow that grief to coexist on like a parallel train track, and then on the other train track, is the joy that I experience and still seeing that cute little rabbit

or the joy that I experience in the relationship that I still have with someone, then I can allow those things to coexist together and they can both be true because I think they both have to be true. Like, yes, this person or animal or whatever is leaving. And that's sad. But at the same time, they are also still here.

And that's wonderful. And you also have the opportunity to say that John has named this phenomenon pre grief or for short, pre and that will just make you talk a little bit. Yeah, we all experience a little pre-f here and there. All right, John, this next question comes from Monica, who asks, dear Hank and John. So I'm known as the Dr. Pepper girl amongst my friends at work, because I love Dr. Pepper.

Like so much so last year for my 23rd birthday, I flew to Texas to go to the Dr. Pepper Museum per John's recommendation. And it was one of the best museums I've ever been to. I mean, we gotta stop the question. There's a lot that troubles me about the previous sentence. I feel like I need to set the record straight on about 75 different issues. So I don't like to interrupt a question, but this is an emergency.

Okay. Okay. Number one, I, I, just to be clear, I do not recommend that anyone choose as their first post pandemic trip, a flight to Waco, Texas, to see the Dr. Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute. Because when foot's clements was setting it up, he wouldn't have a Dr. Pepper Museum and Free Enterprise Institute because when Fitzclements was setting it up, he wouldn't have a Dr. Pepper Museum unless there would also be a free enterprise museum on top of it. Number two, number two, and I'm really happy that you enjoyed the Dr. Pepper Museum, but I'm just going to level with you flat out Monica. If it is one of the best museums you have ever visited, you need to visit more museums. I want you. I understand you had a great trip to Waco and it's a cool city

and I'm really glad that you got to go there and everything, but you need to go to New York and you need to go to the the Met. You need to go to Chicago and you need to go to the Art Institute. And I mean, forget, come to Indianapolis and go to horrifically, they renamed the Indianapolis Museum of Art for no reason, new fields. So, Jess, even, your name's not Jess, Monica, even come here to, oh God, new fields. And you'll have a really good museum experience. Okay, Hank, you can now go on with the question.

I'm planning to get a Dr. Pepper tattoo in the near future. Oh my God, I gotta stop it again. Jess, I want you to think long and hard about that Dr. Pepper tattoo. I want you to spend, I don't know. I feel like you're on the verge. I was thinking about getting a tattoo this week, but I haven't ever gotten one.

So I think I might not. I think I might just think about it. What tattoo are you thinking about getting? The first illustrations of human neurons by Santiago Ramón y Cajal. That's on the crash course coin. Yeah, actually, which you can no longer get. I'm sorry. That would be very near the top of my list of tattoos.

It's pretty cool. It's very beautiful. Okay. Obviously, if you want a Dr. Pepper tattoo, Monica, you should get it. But just bear in mind that you don't know what the Dr. Pepper Snapple Curry company might do in the future because they're a private corporation and they could make, they could make a big misstep. Who knows? That would be my only concern is you're really hitching your wagon to that Kareg Dr. Pepper Snapple group star. Oh, and none of this is the question. What's

y'all's take? Monica asks in the actual question now that John's done delivering free advice that was not asked for. What's y's he all take on Dr. Pepper Zero? Oh, I have not had a diet soda in eight years. I do not like them. I know, I think it's very admirable. It's something I really like about you. I did try Dr. Pepper Zero as soon as it came out. It's good, you know, it's okay.

The issue is that it's, so the reason like diet drinks like Coke zero and even like Mountain Dew Zero sort of work is because diet Coke and diet Mountain Dew are like distinctly worse than regular Coke and regular Mountain Dew and Coke zero and Mountain Dew zero are like significantly closer to to their full calorie analog, right? But the thing about Dr. Pepper,

that makes Dr. Pepper so interesting. The reason it's fundamentally different from every other kind of soda is that it doesn't taste like anything else. Like when Charles Alderton, and you could read about this in the Anthropocene Reviewed book, when Charles Alderton was inventing Dr. Pepper, he wanted to invent a soda that tasted the way that the soda fountain in Waco, Texas, at his pharmacy, smelled all of these artificial flavors, kind of coexisting together.

And that's why there's 23 different kinds of syrup flavors in Dr. Pepper. And so it's really hard to make anything taste like Dr. Pepper. We know this because all the Dr. Pepper knockoffs taste so little like Dr. Pepper. Is this why, but that is why Hannah for her 23rd birthday went to the Dr. Pepper Museum? Very possibly. To celebrate the 23 serums. Oh, maybe.

Hannah's a genius. Monica, I'll get her name right one of these days. So that was genius if you did it, Monica. Anyway, diet, Dr. Pepper tastes like Dr. Pepper, which is a miracle because Dr. Pepper doesn't taste like anything else. Dr. Pepper's zero also tastes like Dr. Pepper. It's just that for me personally, it tastes a little too much like Dr. Pepper Zero also tastes like Dr. Pepper. It's just that for me personally,

it tastes a little too much like Dr. Pepper. Like, I kinda like Dr. Pepper because it's a slightly less intense sugary rush than a full flavor Dr. Pepper. And Dr. Pepper Zero is coming dangerously close to full flavor Dr. Pepper levels of sweetness, which I can't handle at my advanced age. Well, I mean, John, I should have known better than to ask this question.

Of course you have both very robust, delightfully nuanced, and boring opinions on this. Well, you can call them boring, Hank, but I'll tell you what, in the Dr. Pepper fan forums, my takes are blistering hot and everybody wants to either get on the bandwagon or take me down. Oh, is that really happening? Oh, yeah. Are you kidding? This whole audio bit is going to be clipped and put on the Dr. Pepper fan forums and people are going to be debating it for months.

I can't tell if there's going to be one group of people who are like, John Green continues to be the greatest brand ambassador. Dr. Pepper has seen since foot's clemence himself and there's going to be one group of people who are like John Green continues to be the greatest brand ambassador. Dr. Pepper is seen since foot's clemence himself. And there's going to be a whole nother group of people who are like John Green's takes on Dr. Pepper have done more to harm Dr. Pepper than anyone since foot's clemence said that Dr. Pepper should be drunk hot instead of tea. Okay. I really don't know both because you're doing a good job of telling the story and also the internet can no longer surprise me. I really don't know whether you've been sort of raked over the coals of the Dr. Pepper fan forums.

I have on occasion. Do I need to be worried for you? No, no, no, it's not. It's not, it's not a Tumblr 2014 situation, Hank, but I have on occasion just as a prominent Dr. Pepper fan. I have been, like, there are a lot of other people who really love Dr. Pepper and they have their own strong opinions about it. And like, they don't necessarily like me going on and like trying to like shape the public's opinion of Dr. Pepper. We can move on from this conversation.

Ah. Okay. Do you have a question for me? All right. I think we got another question from Lindsay who writes, dear John and Hank, I've been rewatching the Marvel movies and I noticed that things are always blowing up in space. There's a big gas explosion and a strapped off line all over. But like, correct me if I'm wrong here,

but my understanding is that there's no oxygen in space. Is that like what would actually happen? Would there be flames and fire and huge explosions? Would shrapnel go flying everywhere? Help me understand. Fumes and flames, Lindsay. It says flames and fakes, but that doesn't matter to me. I'm not a good reader.

Okay. Yeah, you can absolutely have an explosion in space It says flames and fakes, but that doesn't matter to me. I'm not a good reader. Okay. Yeah, you could absolutely have an explosion in space because the, as long as the fuel is contained in whatever thing is exploding. So, theoretically, you've got a spaceship up there. That spaceship needs to contain a lot of energy in order to move its own big ol' self around. And whatever, and whatever is containing that energy is a lot of energy stored in a very

dense spot, like a gasoline tank, but probably even more so because it's probably fusion power or something. But if you blow up a gasoline tank in space, it looked like if you blow up a gasoline tank on Earth. No, in fact, a gasoline tank would not blow up in space, but it would blow up on a spaceship because the spaceship has the oxygen in it. Oh, cool. In this case, it probably isn't gonna be oxygen.

It's probably gonna be some futuristic fuel that isn't about combustion at all. It's about some kind of nuclear power. And in that case, you could definitely have a nuclear explosion in space with no problem. Fusion explosions happen in our solar system a lot, and they're the whole reason why we can exist and our warm and not frozen solid and dead. Oh.

So, definitely Candace. Whoa, so you're saying that basically it's because a lot of spaceships are blowing up all the time on a nearby star called the Sun that we're alive. Just the blowing up, you have to subtract the spaceship from the equation. But there's the equivalent of a number of spaceships exploding all the time. And that's why it's warm today in Indianapolis instead of being dead. Yes, correct Wow, and in fact, maybe that would be a good way to imagine the sun is just a lot of

Spaceships exploding yeah, but yeah, so that's that's probably what's happening You can also just have a spaceship explode in space because there's gonna be oxygen on the inside because people are gonna have to breathe it So if you if you had enough gasoline in there, you could probably boil your spaceship up we're gonna have to breathe it. So if you had enough gasoline in there, you could probably boil your spaceship up, because it would increase the pressure really dramatically as that oxygen and gasoline or whatever your fuel is, turns from a liquid to a gas,

you would have to have an awful lot of exploding happening. And also, like, for example, rockets have to sort of do their flammie thing, but they carry the oxygen around with them. But if you mix those two, if there's an accident where all that stuff mixed together, they could totally combust even in space before all that gas is a chance to spread out.

Have I ever told you about the time I watched the movie Gravity with my beloved wife, Sarah? Oh, God. Okay, so Sarah has a difficult time not talking in movies when there's something she feels strongly about, like when we're in the movie theater. And so she'll start out just sort of like mumbling, mumbling, mumbling, mumbling. And then slowly the mumbling will grow louder. And then I would say about like 20 minutes before the end of gravity, I finally understood

what she was saying, which is why is Sandra Bullock's hair not floating and flying all around her face all the time. Everyone knows what Sandra Bullock's hair would be doing in the vacuum of space. Why is it not doing that? Oh, man. I mean, there's an awful lot of this. I mean, gravity was a very difficult movie for me to watch, John. As you might know.

I was very difficult for me to watch as well, not because of any science stuff, but just because, I've got pretty bad vestibular system. And so I need a camera that's like grounded somewhere. You know, I need to know what's up and what's down or my eyes start to shiver in their socks. Yeah, I mean, I'll say, the beginning of that movie is very, very intense,

it's very good filmmaking, but it is just hard to watch from, oh God, I'm watching that scene right now. I've just loaded it up. I've just loaded up from the side. Yeah, I can't do it. What is happening? It's just perfect. What is happening? Why why why who was who was being pulled in that direction? Doesn't make sense. Yeah Now she's going what she's she's going one way and her hair is going down always down

Because that's the whole the name of the movie is probably. It's just got like tiny, where does he go? Yes, but the only thing subjects to it is Sandra Bullock's hair. Well, also just at random times, other things. Yeah, I mean, it just depends on whether it's convenient for there to be gravity. They added, they just subtracted, they added, they subtracted. I also really enjoyed the movie I I don't want to take anything away from the filmmaking which I thought was brilliant or the performances or anything

it's so hard to make a movie it's so easy to criticize one yes but the I from my perspective I guess to come out of from more of a humanity's angle, my biggest problem with the movie was not necessarily the hair, not adhering to the laws of nature. It was more the, how do you say, continual, convenient reappearance of a dead person? Well, you know, that's all I can say is that it's an absolute joy to watch a movie with Sarah in the movie theater. It really is. She also like, she just won't whisper.

You know, wow. She doesn't want to say it to just me. She wants to say it. I mean, I don't know what it's like to be in a movie theater anymore, John. I forgot. Yeah. No, me too. I mean, yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna all ever know again.

But there's a little part of me that misses movie theaters. I might be too fast to- That's a furious 17. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha still living with my parents and my parents have recently started to make friends with several families in our new church. And subsequently, we've been asked to dinner by multiple families. Now these families know I exist. We'll even like share a greeting or a very limited small talk. I also have a 19 year old sister. And she feels similarly like the friends are my parents and we are acquaintances.

The problem is that these new families have been saying, we wanna have y'all over for dinner. Now who is y'all? Am I included in y'all? It's not that I'm hoping for an invite. I just wanna make sure that I'm not supposed to be there. When people wanna have y'all over for dinner, do they wanna have me over for dinner, do they want to have me over

for dinner? That's a great question and I don't think there's any way to know. This is the great shortcoming of y'all, which is an amazing word, a wonderful top 10 all-time word. It feels to me like they're leaving it open. Yes, that's what I was gonna say. They're doing, they're y'alling it. Yeah, that's what. This is an R call, it's y'all's call. Exactly, y'all decide what in this case constitutes y'all. So what y'all call? It's the y'all call.

What they're saying. Action, now I like it again. I do too. It's not a limitation, it's an advantage. You just have to understand it. You're too. It's not a limitation. It's an advantage. You just have to understand it. You're right. It's exactly right, Hank.

What I initially thought was a weakness of y'all turns out to be yet another one of its many strengths. It's the y'all call. They're saying, y'all decide what version of y'all y'all want to bring to dinner. Y'all decide. Y'all decide. Y'all. Y'all y'all want to bring to dinner. You all decide. Y'all y'all know. Y'all know who y'all is. Y'all know if y'all get along.

Y'all know if Carly is good dinner company or not. Y'all decide. Y'all is y'all's call. It's like a sentence out of Ulysses. That's actually, that might be the best, that might be the best sentence that's been written since James Joyce wrote love loves to love love in 1904.

Oh, Y'all's Y'all is Y'all's call. Wow, Hank. Wow. And look, now that's a conversation that you're gonna have to have with your parents, which doesn't necessarily make things better. Carly, I think you just sit down with your parents and you say, listen, y'all, me and my sister,

not y'all. We are, we love y'all. We support y'all. We appreciate being able to live in y'alls house. Where? But we're not y'all. We appreciate being able to live in y'all's house. But we're not y'all. We are more of a wheel if you understand what I'm saying. We're a wheel. And y'all have fun this weekend at the Hernandez's house, but but we're gonna wheel wheel be on the couch looking at tic-tocs That's such a great way of explaining to your parents that even though you all live together Things have changed a little bit, you know, that like it's like you have to

make it's it's like a coming of age moment when you say to your parents, like, Hey, moving forward when, uh, people look at us and say, y'all, they mean you and you, uh, but not me or her. Wow. That kind of hits me in the hard strings, John. It's, oh, I know some days some day our kids Hank are going to look at us and they're going to say, I regret to inform you, I am no longer part of your y'all. I can't talk about it anymore. This next question comes from Joleen who asks, that I thought it was fun. I thought it was all fun and games.

Dearest Hank and John, can a box be round or oval? Won't take your man, Joleen. And then Joleen writes in a PS that they won't take your man, Jolene. And then Jolene writes in a PS that they won't take your man due to being a lesbian. So actually definitely not going to happen. This, the first instinct was like, no, of course a box can't be round or oval. And then I was like, no, of course it can. So I don't know where I've, and I come down on this. My first instinct was that Jolene would be a hard name to have because everyone would sing the song to you all the time.

I'm sure that's not something Dolly Parton intended. No. But I do feel like she kind of owes you some royalties. I just say absolutely. The, so picture in your head, John A box. I see a box. It's definitely kind of cubicle. Yeah.

Yeah, but the thing is, that's an extruded rectangle of some sort. If you show me around box, I'm gonna say it's a box. That's a box. If you show me it, if it's a oval box. If it's made of wood.

Yeah. And it's got a headboard. Or even cardboard. Even cardboard. Even cardboard. A wooden cardboard box. Here's what I'll say. Look, when I was a child, I had a box collection, an extensive box collection.

Now I know what you're wondering. It's true. He did. I forgot about that. I know what you're saying. I sold it all on eBay. That is what people are naturally going to wonder. Did you treat my box collection the same way you treated my beloved baseball card collection

and sell it on an eBay? The answer is no. Hank only sold the valuable boxes on eBay. That's not true. I have no, first, for clarity, I have no idea whether I sold your boxes on eBay. I barely know whether or not I sold your baseball cards. I only believed that because I've been told. Okay.

Well, we could, we could talk to mom and dad after this. And we could establish whether or not any of my boxes were ever sold on eBay by people other than me. But anyway, I still have a lot of this box collection, not all of it, and it's a lovely box collection that I maintained from the age of five until about the age of 15. And many of my boxes are round or oval. And I consider them all to be boxes nonetheless. They were all inside of my box collection. So that is why I feel like as a former, or I guess I should say like

a retired box collector myself, I feel like I have a level of expertise in this and that I can say around or oval box is a box. Now the number one definition of box is a container with flat base and sides typically square or rectangular. Typically, but as long as it's got flat base, well, this is flat base and sides. Well, I'm just saying, I'm just saying typically, show me a round box, ask someone if it's a box, they're gonna say it's a box.

Yeah, what is this? Oh, no, god. What just happened? I sneezed. Oh god. Sneezing is not normal. Oh My god, how long have you been sneezing? I need to go to see an averageist. When did you start sneezing? Was it today? I think that I think that I had some I think that I had some yesterday and also the day before. Oh, no. And probably all the other days before those days. Oh my God, no, Hank, early detection when it comes to sneezing is one of the number one

interventions that we can still make. I got my sneeze journal here, John. You're gonna look and see how many times I've been sneezing. Yes, please. I've been barking it down every sneeze because I know it's not. And then do you write all the things that you like eight or ingested or thought about in

the minutes before sneezing? That's very important because we're never going to be able. It may be boxes, John. Oh, no. Is it boxes? Is boxes the reason we're all sneezing? We got to move on. We can't get the new answer.

You're a question, unfortunately, because it's introduced a sneeze into this. This is a disaster. I can't believe you. There's a box right here. Wow. There's a box right here. Wow. There's a box right here next. Oh my god. Oh my god, there's a box.

Oh god. I can't believe you sneeze. There's one up there. I can't believe you sneezed on the podcast knowing full well that sneezing is not normal. I can't believe you exposed yourself like that. Also, I can't believe you were able to sneeze without thinking sneezing is not normal. Because I was worried there was another one with your audio file.

The number one thing that, well, because this is a dramatic shift in my life over the last month for, for 43 years, I walked through life blindly never thinking about sneezes for more than three seconds after they happened. But now for the rest of my entire life, I'm going to have to think sneezing isn't normal after every single time I sneeze. And for those of you who are familiar with this, I was referenced to a previous episode of the podcast

where an actual medical doctor told someone that sneezing isn't normal. And now I can't help but think sneezing isn't normal every time I sneeze. And I am free from this. to, is a cup of box? Is it what? A box. Is a cup of box. If that's it, but the cup is a box, there's a lot of boxes around.

No, no, a cup has to be a cup with a lid on it might be a box. Oh god. It's a lot of box. Hank, we've done the thing again. We've done the thing again where we try to answer a category question without saying the only true answer, which is that these categories are made up, yes, and they are not real.

Hold on, I was tweeting. What did you say? Cops are bosses. I said these categories are made up. They were invented by us. They are inherently insufficient because they depend on language, which is itself insufficient and perpetually not up to the task. And so that is why we have this confusion. It is not a failure of oval boxes

or circular boxes or human imagination. It is merely a failure of categorization, which always fails at some level because categories are made up. Cuts your boxes. Oh, okay. I put it on Twitter. So it's done now. So glad that you tweeted that. I work so hard on my tweets. I work on them for days and weeks, craft them with an anvil and a tiny mallet. I don't even really know what either of those things is. And you write your tweets like wall we're popping. Yeah, that was like the second one I've done during this podcast, which reminds me, John, that this podcast is brought to you by our new brand of cups, water boxes, waterboxes.com cups for the future. Today's podcast is also brought to you by the y'all call.

Y'all's y'all is y'all's call. This podcast is also brought to you by Prieth. Prieth is the pre-grease and is a part of ice. And today's podcast is also brought to you by another part of life, the Dr. Pepper Museum and free enterprise institute. Crowley serving Waco, Texas, and at least according to Monica, one of the best museums in the world.

Yes. It is a really good museum, and also if you love Dr. Pepper, it's a really, really good museum. John, we have a project for awesome message from Ben Schramke, who says, I'd love to hear you both. Give each other a compliment. You don't think the other has ever gotten. Well, that's no pressure.

I'll be using this message as a reminder to do the same for everyone I care about and encourage all of Nerdfighteria to follow along. After all, small encouragement to the t-shirt with a long sleeve button down, but not buttoned shirt from like a secondhand store. I think it's a really cool but age appropriate fashion thing. I have never gotten that compliment. John, I know that you have never been complimented on your sneeze specific jokes, but in general, I don't feel like people compliment you on your humor enough and don't sort of see that as one of the things, by one of

the top five things that you bring to the table, but I absolutely think it is. Well, thanks. That is very nice of you. It has been really lovely to hear so many people say that the Anthropocene Reviewed book made them laugh. I think, I mean, in general, I don't think it's any easier to make someone laugh out loud when they're reading a book than it is to make someone cry when they're reading a book, like both are borderline miraculous to me, that you can have this sort of real world inside your body reaction to a, you know, series of marks on a page. It's my favorite thing about reading, like when it can kind of come to life for me in that

way. I love laughing out loud when I read. And so it's been very nice to hear from people who felt like they laughed out loud a lot while reading that book. This next question comes from Elissa who asks, Dear Hank and John, lately my girlfriend and I have been watching a lot of ocean-specific nature documentaries shout out to our planet with David Attenborough. It is very good. And they keep talking about oxygen poor or oxygen rich sections of the ocean. How can water be oxygen poor when water is made out of hydrogen and oxygen? If water was oxygen poor, wouldn't it just be hydrogen?

Oh, to be rich. Alissa. Oh, to as an oxygen gas. Oh, yes, yes, yes, got it. Because there's a lot of it. Yeah. Given that the ocean is partly made out of oxygen, at least in my understanding of it, how are there oxygen rich and oxygen poor areas of that ocean?

Well, the water parts are always the same amount of oxygen. So it's, you know, two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen, that's, that's you got yourself some water. But that's not the oxygen we're talking about. The oxygen we're talking about is the oxygen that organisms, that animals specifically need to metabolize. So they need to take in actual O2. So this is oxygen gas that is in our atmosphere.

It's like 20%. Let's just say of our atmosphere is, wait, I think it's more than that, and whatever. So O2 in our atmosphere. It's like 20%. Let's just say of our atmosphere is, wait, I think it's more than that, whatever. So O2 in our atmosphere, we're breathing it all the time. We suck it into our lungs so that we can squeeze it and have it help us metabolize fish and other organisms in the ocean also need to do this. And oxygen gas dissolves in water. And there is an amount of it that can be, and that concentration can vary significantly, and it can vary from the different reasons. The big reason being that it gets consumed by other organisms and it doesn't replenish. So basically, near the surface oxygen concentrations are always at the maximum, like you couldn't get any more in.

And that is mostly what fish need in order to survive. They need a lot of dissolved oxygen. Now, different temperatures of water can also contain different amounts of oxygen. So, colder water can contain more dissolved oxygen gas. You know, this intuitively, because if a soda heats up, it loses a lot of its dissolved gas. Now, in that case, it's carbon dioxide, not oxygen, but it's same rules apply. And so, colder water, one of the problems we have out in the West is when our trout streams heat up, they can't hold enough oxygen for the trout to be able to like breathe effectively. So, colder streams are better for trout.

And that is also true elsewhere. In fact, this is a super weird fact. There is a species of fish that has evolved to not have blood because they don't need blood because the water is so cold that it's pretty good at holding oxygen on its own. So it just pumps water around in its veins instead of blood. Whoa, but it's gotta be cold water. It's gotta be cold water, yes. It's an Arctic fish. Wow, that is very cool. Antarctic fish.

Can I tell you, can I, and I know that if I'd thought about this, I could have pieced together that I was wrong, but can I tell you what I just always assumed? Okay. I just always assumed? Okay. I just always assumed that in the same way that I always assumed that Mars was kind of hot on account of it being red and desert-y. I always just kind of assumed that the way that fish breathing happened was that the water

goes through the gills and some of the oxygen gets extracted. And that's how they keep on doing their fish stuff. But then, of course, it immediately occurred to me now that I'm thinking about it. Well, then that would lead, first off, that'd be hard work. Secondary. It is, yeah. Yes. Very hard work.

Secondly, it would lead to much too much hydrogen. Yes, it would lead to a production of a lot of hydrogen gas, which we would notice. Yeah. But yeah, that was my thought about how it happened. It is kind of counterintuitive that gas can dissolve in water, because we watch solids dissolving in water. We do that, we dissolve sugar and salt. We see that happening, we know that it can happen. But if we didn't see that happening, we know that it can happen. But if we didn't see that happening, that on its own will be counterintuitive.

Like how in the world do you take a gas or a solid and put it into water and have it just disappear? It's just in there. Yeah. And it's just in there. That's part of how water works. It's one of the great things about water. It's really good at dissolving stuff.

That is weird. But I am a big fan of water. Yes. My second favorite liquid. After dye, Dr. Pepper? Yeah, that's why there's no water museum. You don't see Wico Texas having the museum of water and free enterprise institute. Oh man, we got to do a water museum.

We got to celebrate that life giving stuff. The Zoolomontan is museum of water. Gotta celebrate it. Gotta say thank you. And it's not free enterprise. It's just like free. It's just like the ecosystem did this for you. Well, appreciate it. Okay, it didn't do it for you though, just to be clear. The ecosystem did not make Clean drinkable water available in communities of over a million people. Sure. We did that and it was the Together, I would argue it was the single do it on our own. It was the single most important in public health intervention in human history It has saved more lives than all medicines combined. And the fact that most people have clean, drinkable water is the best, I think, testament

to what humans can do when they work together. And the fact that hundreds of millions of people still don't have clean, drinkable water is the best indictment I know of, of humanity's ability to ignore the needs of other people and to treat lives that feel distant from ours as, as fundamentally different from ours. So I think that actually we should have a museum of water that celebrates the astonishing and millennial long history of humans and water interacting. But of course, Hank, we don't have like a many billions of dollars in revenue, like Dr. Pepper has to start such a museum.

Yeah, do you think the Dr. Pepper museum turns a profit or is it sort of a, no, I think it's a brand, yeah, it's a brand building exercise. Yeah, yeah. I went to the spam museum on the way out here at or at some point while it was in Montana and it's great. I Was I was a little bit Impressed. Yeah, I've heard good things about it was the best museum I've ever been to Well, I went to the Louvre with you, so I know that's not true

Look, but the Louvre doesn't have that vibe that the spam museum has. It doesn't. You're right. It's really missing that vibe. All right, Hank, before we get to the all important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon, I want to answer just one more question from Marney who writes, dear John and Hank, have either of you ever read a book that you cannot stop thinking about and you feel like you cannot read another book ever again because it would ruin the feeling after reading that special book.

I cannot read another book because I keep comparing books to this special book. What do I do? Not the purple dinosaur, Marney. Marney, you can't ask the question and not say the special book. Gosh, yeah, I'm so curious. I needed to ask this question on the podcast because I need you to email us again and tell us what the special book was so that I could have this experience. Because no, not really.

I definitely have books that really stick with me, but I guess I read a lot of different kinds of books. And so it's very hard to compare like a nonfiction popular science book to like a you know, like mystery crime novel. Yeah, I mean there are books when I read them I think I want to hold on to this feeling for a long time. Yeah. You know, so like I don't want to read something because I want to be able to keep this You know, so like I don't want to read something because I want to be able to keep this sort of wistful longing, loving, engrossed feeling that I have after reading that book. There've only been a very few times when I read a book and thought like, wow, I want to take a little break from reading to just enjoy, you know, being with that. One was the mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Shaven,

which I read when I was in high school and it had such a huge impact on me. What Ketcher and the Rye was to kids in the 60s, that book was to me in 1993. And another that I read more recently, but that had a huge impact on me was mountains beyond mountains, the story of the formation of partners in health by Tracy Kitter. And it's just a really beautiful book. And I did have that feeling a little bit.

But then when I could do go back to reading, I'm always happy to go back to it. And I think to myself, well, look, lots of different books do lots of different things. That is very right. But I love that feeling so much of specifically when I'm like three-quarters of the way through a book, and I'm just like, please stop ending. I just want you to keep going on. Yeah, you feel like you could live in that world forever. And it's it's sad to have to leave the world. But the thing is you couldn't live in the world forever. And you always, in the best books, you leave the world at precisely the right moment, which is like one

minute too soon. Yeah, that's right. So it's no good. I would have said, well, I'm done with this now. Yeah, right. That's why I like the best books don't like Peter slowly to a conclusion after the conclusion after the conclusion. Yeah. Speaking of which, it's time to move on to the conclusion after the conclusion. It's the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. In this week's Mars News, we've got more helicopter news, John. How's it going? The ingenuity helicopter has been kicking up dust because that's what it does. It takes off and it blows air at the ground.

The dust goes up in the air. We've been learning about dust through this and have discovered things that we didn't expect. Engineers had planned for the dust. They designed the helicopter to be able to operate in all the dust. But during the helicopter's fourth flight, where it flew 133 meters while surrounded by a dust cloud, the video of the flight suggests that dust on Mars

can get lifted up much more easily than scientists had expected. And that's exciting because it gives them a new tool to study Mars' atmosphere and to understand how dusty tornado-like events called dust devils are able to lift so much of that dust into the air. Also maybe gives us a little bit more insight into how dust gets blown off of the solar panels of some of the other Martian experiments. So that's important just for a practical reason, but also for a broader earth science, earth science, Mars science reason of understanding how exactly this dust moves around and gets everywhere. Because that's going to be an important understanding when we're there.

Because the dust might be a significant problem because it will get everywhere. And as Anakin Skywalker says, there have been now seven ingenuity flights. The helicopter's blades are spinning at more than 24,000 revolutions per minute. And it's going to keep flying along with the rover as the rover moves. So sort of like stay with it because it's how it communicates back with Earth. Until August unless something goes wrong. And that's when its operations are scheduled to end. Okay.

Well, it's pretty cool to fly anything on Mars, but it seems like it might be hard to fly a lot of things on Mars over a long time. Yeah, well, yes. The dust is going to be a problem, generally. Yeah, it seems like that. If only there were like a lot of water to tamp it down. Yeah, but that is also going to be a problem. Nonetheless, I remain optimistic. Speaking of optimism, AFC Wimbledon have a new name for their pub, Hank, so there's a bar at the New Plow Lane Stadium, which is going to be opening up to fans,

hopefully everybody in the UK keep getting those jabs. There's two on the top. There's two on the top. Yeah, let's get fans back in the stadium. They're doing good, but you know, let's keep it rolling. The Plowley and Stadium will hopefully have fans when the season begins in August. And the pub, which is at the stadium and it's really, really cool, it's got like full glass floor to ceiling so you can look out on the pitch and it's really, really cool. It's got like full glass floor to ceiling, so you can look out on the pitch and then during the game,

because it's not legal to see the game from a pub. The glass turns to, I don't know, like frosted glass. It's pretty cool. Anyway, it has a name and the name for the pub is the Phoenix. It was voted on by the fans, like everything because the fans own the club. There's somewhat contentious. A lot of people wanted some other titles,

but I quite like the Phoenix. It is a club that rose from the ashes. It reminded me of that great desoline. I'm the Phoenix and the ash. Ooh. Oh, God, it's such a great line. But the phoenix is going to be the Plow Lane pub. I really hope to see lots of you at Plow Lane.

It's actually been really wonderful. Heck, people have been sending me lots of pictures because Plow Lane is a vaccination site. And so people have been sending me lots of pictures of themselves getting jabbed at Plow Lane. That's cool. It's really awesome to see. But what would be just as fun would be to see some football there. And so next season, I really hope that I'll be able to go to to at least two, maybe even more games. And I would love to see some of y'all there. So season tickets are available now

if you live in London and you're like, what am I going to do with my life post pandemic? I have a recommendation. Start going to AFC Wimbledon Games and see if that sparks the same joy for you that it sparked for me. But yeah, I'm really excited to be at Plowlay next season and really, really hopeful that it's going to be possible. Woo-woo. Well, John, thank you for making the podcast with me, and thank you all for listening to that podcast. If you have questions to ask us, that's how we make the podcast, and you can ask them at hankandjohnatgemail.com.

Quick reminder, after the end of the podcast, there will be the beginning of my conversation with Adam Grapp for his podcast work life, so hang around for that. This podcast is edited by Joseph Tune of Manish. It's produced by Rosiana Halls-Rohassen, Sheridan Gibson. Our communications coordinator is Julia Bloom. Our editorial assistant is Deboki Chokravardi,

the music you're hearing now, and at the beginning of the podcast is by the great Donorola, and as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. One of the things I thought might be fun is to ask you to review some things that didn't make it into the book. All right, I'm in. So one of the things that's obviously been defining for a lot of people's past year of their Anthropocene has been remote work.

How would you review remote work? Oh, I'm so conflicted about it because in a lot of ways it's great. And, you know, my brother and I, because he lives in Montana and I live in Indiana, we've been working remotely since 2007 and finding ways to collaborate together. And so I think the transition was probably easier for me than it was for a lot of people. And it's always been for me a place of calm and contemplation where I can really get into that flow state of work. Whereas an office environment often for me is full of interruptions and conversations, which is its own kind of productive, but not the kind that I

most treasure. I miss being with people, though, I think even though I'm quite introverted and don't love a meeting, I miss being present with people and the little collaborations that just emerge naturally from being together. That said, like, if I had my brothers, I'd probably still spend three or four days a week working from home, so I'll give work from home like three and a half stars. I'm with you there. I was gonna give it four, oh my God. Because I need a lot of other people to do it in order to get away with doing a lot of it myself.

Yeah, I feel like your rating of it is much more evidence-based than my rating. So we'll say four. You brought me around. I didn't want you to rethink it so quickly. No, it's good. It's important for me to be able to change my mind immediately. I will say there was a meta-analysis even long pre-pandemic that said as long as we're in the office half the week that we get more productivity and satisfaction

there's not a real cost to relationships and that made a ton of sense to me. I like this idea that's emerging in a lot of workplaces now that we're gonna go to the office to collaborate, but we can stay home to work. Yes, and I hope that will be the future for lots of organizations. Same, okay, next thing I wanna ask you to review is therapy. Oh, I mean, for me therapy is a five star experience. It's hard for me to imagine what my life would be like

without therapy. I have fairly severe obsessive-compulsive disorder and have had periods of major depression in my life, and the tools and techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy have made as big a difference for me, probably as medication, and between the two of them there, the reason why I'm able to have a healthy and productive life, while also living with mental illness. On that note, how would you review OCD itself?

Well, you know, Sarah and I were talking about this recently and she was like, I wouldn't want you to be anyone other than you. And I wouldn't want you to not have OCD. And I was like, I would like to not have OCD. I'm also just really suspicious of attempts to find the superpower and mental illness or find the upside in it.

For me, it's just a chronic health problem that I have to live with and try to manage and treat as I would any other health problem. So, I mean, it's a one-star thing for me. I'm not, I don't really see a lot of upside to it. I would, yeah, one star, unfortunately, yeah, it's a one-star thing. That's fair. I obviously can't object to that. I think what it thinks you have done, though, with your work is you've helped a lot of people understand what that experience is like. And I guess that goes to one of the other things I wanted to ask you to review, which is

adults reading young adult novels. Four stars. I think it's great. I mean, I'm biased, obviously. I think one of the reasons we tend, even as adults, to be drawn to stories of adolescence is because so many things that are still happening to us now happen to us for the first time as teenagers. And so whether that's, you know, dealing with falling in love or dealing with grappling with grief or asking big questions about meaning and suffering, adolescence can be an interesting

kind of time of life to approach those questions through because they're such an intensity to that first experience of it. I've never understood, and so you just explained that, why I'm so drawn to young adult novels, even as an adult, because you're right. It's a portal for understanding experiences we're still having that we're much more, that we imprinted on, that we're so much more formative when we have them at that age. Yeah. And, you know, the second time you fall in love is great. And in some ways, it's better because you have a little bit of context. But the first time you fall in love is great and in some ways it's better because you have a little bit of context.

But the first time you fall in love, you really do feel like nobody has ever experienced anything like this in all of human history. And that makes it fun to write about. I think it also makes it fun to read about. And then since you've listened to Work Life, I have to ask you to review my podcast. Oh, I think it's a five star podcast. I find this podcast super helpful for understanding my own work life, but also for understanding the work life of the teams of people we work with.

That is a huge honor. Your episode on burnout came at a very fortuitous time in my life when I was experiencing a lot of burnout, but also didn't understand one that I was experiencing burnout and two, why I was experiencing it. And understanding that it isn't just about how much work you're doing was really important for me. Understanding that if I have a sense of daily progress and a sense of small wins, work becomes much easier and more fun. And then when I have a sense of orientation and purpose, work doesn't feel so overwhelming to me. And so that was probably the biggest thing that I use all the time.

When I start to feel that way, I can tell myself, okay, well, what are some small wins, or are you venturing away from a feeling of purpose in your work, and maybe that's why your feeling burnt out? I think, of course, there are lots of other causes of burnout and lots of other treatments for it that we're discussing that episode, but that's what resonated really deeply with me.

And it was kind of like a magic pill, not to overstated or anything. Well, as a native Midwesterner, I have to say, I like the Indianapolis flavor of this review. It's very kind and warm, but I also imagine there's some ideas you've disagreed with or wanted to challenge a little bit. Is there anything that jumped out at you

where you said, now you got this wrong? Or I have a different take on this. One of the things I really like about the podcast is that you make room for uncertainty and celebrate the wisdom of being able to change your mind. But I think I haven't even radical, more radical approach to uncertainty than you do. Oh, definitely.

To be uncertain about everything all the time, no matter what. I would not be able to function. There are little moments where you have a measure of certainty that I feel like, I'm not totally sure that I'm not sure. I am 100% sure that's true, as I would be. But yeah, you have much higher tolerance for ambiguity than I do. Oh, that's an interesting way of thinking about it,

but yeah, I mean, I feel like I have to because that's all I got. Ambiguity is my whole jam. That's so funny, because I have the exact opposite experience. Yeah, you've got in my jam is I need to find clarity and certainty within all of the ambiguity. Maybe clarity is a better word than certainty. You're looking for and expressing the places where the murky, deep down stuff that we often don't know how to give language or form to becomes clear

through language and form. And I think that's good and important work. I just like sometimes like it to stay murky and and formless. I guess a different way to maybe describe this this tension between our styles is I think that I'm always looking for the simplicity on the far side of complexity and you're very comfortable hanging out in the middle of that complexity. That's great.