Dear Hank & John - 393: I Hope You Forgot to Record

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

In which Hank and John go on a journey of meaning.If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohnFollow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn If you're in need of dubious advice, email us at [e-mail] us for monthly livestreams at patreon.com/dearhankandjohn.Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/dearhankandjohn

You're listening to a Complexly Podcast. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Of course, I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank, which one of us is depressed? It's a comedy podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Why do murderers like pottery, John? It's because they like to go on kilnspreeze. All right. Let me tell you all what just happened. So Hank and I had this big... He's handling this very well. I'm in a great mood. I actually, this is the happy... I'll tell you why

this is the happiest I've been in like six weeks. So Hank and I just recorded the podcast and then we found out 45 minutes into recording the podcast that we actually weren't recording the podcast. We were just two brothers having a private conversation. There was that whole thing about Joe Rogan 16 feet. We had a great bit of, I mean, we had an amazing bit about Joe Rogan 16 feet and how Joe Rogan is just two spiders and how Hank and I are trying to grow more feet so that we, it's hard, listen,

we're not gonna be able to- We're not gonna be two spiders. We're not gonna have 16 feet, but we'll each have eight. And then we will be able to compete with Joe Rogan in the very competitive podcast space. But Hank, there is no way that we can recreate the magic that was the conversation that we just had. And that is the point to me.

That's why I'm giggling and laughing because Hank and I spent all this time talking about my mental health journey. And then Hank was talking about how he doesn't have the same challenges that I have, but the big challenge that he does have is he doesn't feel like something is valuable or worthwhile unless he is working, working, working, working little worker, be Hank Green, trying to make as many things as possible before the sweet embrace of death comes for him. It was the most lovely conversation.

I'm very sorry that y'all don't get to hear it, but it is more magical to me precisely because it is a conversation that turned out to be a private conversation with my brother where he thought he was working and so he was bringing his very best self to it. You know how rarely in a conversation with Hank Green, he's not on Twitter? I was getting full 100% Hank Green, okay? I was getting everything that Hank has to offer because he thought he was working. And then the moment when he found out he wasn't working, he immediately got so mad at himself, and he was like,

I'm not valuable. If I'm not working, I'm so mad. And I was just giggling because I was like, that's just what we were talking about, man. We were just talking. I know that you're on a journey of meaning. Maybe you haven't gotten this far, but what if the universe, Hank, what if the universe was just telling you, giving you a physical example of what it's like to make something that's not for the world that's just for your brother? But it's my job to push record. Well, that is true. The other reason it's funny to me is because it's not my job to push record,

and so I'm not in trouble. I like it when I'm not in trouble. Oh my God. Hank, let's talk about our mental health right now in this moment. I've been taking some time off. I had what used to be called a nervous breakdown, smidge of a mental health crisis, big bout of depression. And then for the first seven to 10 days, it was sort of like being institutionalized, but with sleeping at home, all day meeting with psychologists and my psychiatrist and crisis management kind of stuff. I'm okay, just to clarify. But also the kinds of stuff that they do when you're in a place like, you got to go make pottery now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was making pottery six hours a day just to have something to do. Make sure you sleep a lot.

Play a little ping pong, take naps, all that jazz. It was helpful. Look, it's just helpful not to be on the internet. I'll be honest with you. Being a little distance from the internet turns out to be pretty good for my mental health. I'm not sure quite what to do with that yet, but that's just a broad observation and I don't think it's only true for me. I think there's a reason that people are advised to touch grass. One of the Vlogbrothers' videos ideas I've had is a challenge. I've gotten interested in challenge videos and I was thinking that it'd be fun to make a video that was called, I spent 24 hours touching grass. Wow. You have to be touching grass at all times. That's easy for me. I got you. I'll go get some grass and I'll put it in my sock.

Boom, done. I win. Get on Twitter. And I'll be right there on Twitter. I'll be like, what's up, Elon? How's it going? I got some thoughts about your thoughts. Yeah. And don't tell me to touch grass because it's in my sock right now and I'm the sock guy. I'm touching. Speaking of which, this is sock month. Good.store. Good.store. We got kid socks now. We have kid socks. Yeah. And all the profit goes to charity. Yeah. And you can wear the same socks as your kids, which is super fun. And then you can also talk to them about how the socks helped people in Sierra Leone who otherwise wouldn't have a hospital to go to when they have babies.

Yeah. Allows for safe births and more healthy mothers and more healthy kids. It's a pretty beautiful story and it's already raised over $8 million for charity and it's special and good dot store. But anyway, back to my story because this is about me. This podcast is not about socks. It's not about Joe Rogan. It's not about Hank Green.

It's about me. Okay. I think that you have held as a core belief for a long time that you are not very valuable to the world unless you are working. That is where I feel as if my value comes from. Yes. And you are consciously aware that this is wrong. In fact, you've written one of the most beautiful lines ever written on this topic. Yeah, which is that-

I'm working on it. Yeah, so one of my very favorite lines on this topic and one that I was thinking about a lot during the times that I was making pottery. I mean, I'm still making pottery. Who are we kidding? I just made some earlier today. But one of the things I was thinking about was, you know, you will never be happy until you understand that one of the things I was thinking about was you will never be happy until you understand that one of the things you will produce is your own joy, that you need to be able to produce joy in yourself and other kinds of productivity. That's a kind of productivity.

That's the kind of productivity I've been really focused on while still doing a fair amount of work. I'm not not working, I'm working on this book about tuberculosis, I'm doing this podcast, whatever, but I've definitely taken a step back. I'm working what I would call normalish hours and I'm thinking that maybe that's what I need to do. Maybe that's what I need to do in a more permanent way is find ways to work normalish hours so that I can focus on producing my own joy. Just as I'm trying to work on my core belief, my negative core belief, I do, which is it's

that I'm worthless. It's that I'm a piece of crap. Yeah. I'm so happy that I don't have that one. I'm glad you don't have it either, but a lot of people do. I'm not alone in this and thinking that my work is worthless and my life is worthless and everyone would be better off without me and I'm just a in this and thinking that like my work is worthless and my life is worthless and everyone would be better off without Me and I'm just a piece of crap like it's a pretty common

Core belief my psychiatrist actually asked me he was like, what do you think your core beliefs are? I said, well, the first one is that everyone deserves to love and be loved Uh-huh, and he said he said respectfully you're not acting like that's your core belief And you're like, Oh, yeah, everyone else. Everyone else. There's 8 billion people deserve to love and be loved. One person. Piece of crap. This guy, he sucks deep down all the way. I hate him. And everybody who says he's a piece of crap on the internet is right. And everybody who says that he's a nice guy doing his best, they're full of it. Yeah.

I mean, I'm the same way where I would never think that somebody else's value is contingent upon their productivity, but I think that about myself. Yeah, of course. Of course. Exactly. You understand intellectually that that's not where value in a human life lies. I understand intellectually that when somebody comes to me and they say, I feel worthless or whatever, or I feel like a piece of crap, I always say, well, you're

clearly not. And they're like, oh, I don't make anything. I don't do anything. I don't this, that. I don't have a lot of love in my life right now. Whatever they say. And I'm just like, well, but that's not the only way we measure value. We? Like we also measure value by just being attentive, being in the world. Yeah, I also see this. Seeking connection, seeking meaning. Right, and I see this all the time among my friends who struggle in various ways.

We're like, it'll be like you, one of the most prolific, like beloved, interesting people who's done a ton of stuff and they will be in this mind, and we see this all the time with creative people, they'll be in this mind space of everyone would be better off if I wasn't here.

And in those situations, I look at them like, like you're so loved internationally, You're so loved internationally. It must be an irrational thing that brains just do. Yeah, but I think the brain can do it to anyone. The brains that do it can do it to anyone anywhere. If it can do it to Robin Williams, they can do it to anyone. But my point is that people who can tell themselves the story, well, I'm not Robin Williams. I'm not John. I'm not whatever. That doesn't mean that they're not valuable. They're, of course, valuable. Every single person is worthwhile and nobody is a piece of crap. But it's such a profound core belief that I'm really – I've got this biological chemical problem obviously that I'm dealing with in chemical ways like fixing my medication and figuring all that crap and that's a lot of work and it's real and it's super important and I don't want to minimize this

purely chemical part of it that just has to be dealt with as a chronic illness. But there's also a framework problem. I've seen this with you with ulcerative colitis and with cancer where you have to find a healthy framework to live with your illness. You are actually really, really good at that. You're really good at trying on a bunch of frames really fast and figuring out this frame doesn't work, this frame doesn't work, this frame is going to work the best for me for now. This frame stopped working, so I'm going to reframe it a little bit. That's what I'm really trying hard to do with this feeling of worthlessness is to understand, well, I'm just not a piece of crap. I'm just not worthless. That's just a lie. If somebody says that on the internet, it's as easy to dismiss

as the other things that I find it very easy to dismiss when people say things on the internet about me. Right? It should be as easy to dismiss as the nice things that I find it very easy to dismiss when people say things on the internet about me. Right? Like- When they say it should be as easy to dismiss as the nice things. Oh, yeah. I mean, forget about those. I wasn't even thinking about those. I was thinking about the negative things that I dismiss all the time. Like when people say that I'm a pornographer because of looking for Alaska, I'm like, well, no, I'm not. I know that I'm not. I've read the book. Unlike you, apparently. Either that or you got some weird kinks, which is fine. I'm not. I've read the book. I'm like you, apparently. Either that or you got some weird kinks, which is fine. I'm not here to shame. We're not here to judge, but it's unusual.

Let's just say that. It's unusual. If you read that book and you're like, that was so hot, that's unusual. Anyway, but I find that very easy to dismiss, whereas there are other things where I'm like, oh yeah, that reveals the secret truth about me, which is that I'm worthless and that I'm terrible, and I'm a deeply bad person. I'm willing to extend the grace to understand that people are humans even when they act monstrously. In fact, it doesn't do any good to dehumanize people when they act monstrously. We shouldn't dehumanize them. We should acknowledge that that's part of humanity

and that's what's so disturbing. That's precisely why monstrous behavior is so unacceptable is because it's human, not because if it was inhuman somehow, behavior is so unacceptable is because it's human, not because if it was inhuman somehow, then it would be sort of more acceptable in some ways. But everybody has value. Everybody is human. And yeah. It must be extremely hard to have our job in particular and also to be walking around with this core belief that you're trash because the whole job is to say things that are useful to people and to like, and people are like, I must come and watch these videos or participate in the project for awesome or you know etc like whatever listening to this podcast and and be like at the same time like like i must just be

fooling all of these people into thinking that i'm good or worthwhile or interesting or have something interesting to say and also like do you have to sort of like fake it sometimes interesting to say. And also, like, do you have to sort of like fake it sometimes when you're thinking like, you now like I'm I now must try and have a thing to say that is valuable despite the fact that I do not bring much to the table here. No, I actually think I do bring something to the table. It just feels like it's not my true self. You know, it It feels like when somebody says to me, like I was at the Indiana Fever game yesterday as part of my slow walk out of the house. Yeah.

And I went to the Indiana Fever game yesterday. It was super fun. Love the WNBA, love the Fever, up the fight in Fever. I don't know what they say. I don't know what the songs are yet. They don't seem to have songs. They just say, let's go fever and defense, defense. But you can do it, John. You can bring songs to these people. Yeah, we're working on it. Anyway, I was at the fever game and this lovely couple came up to me and they said, we owe a lot to you because we read Looking for Alaska together when we were first thinking about dating and it really brought us close together. It was so easy for me, so incredibly easy for me to be like, they're lying.

They're just being polite. They're saying that because they noticed a famous person and they wanted to be nice and they wanted to make that famous person happy. I've been in that situation before and told somebody I liked their work when I didn't care or think about their work at all. Anyway, if they did read Looking for Alaska and it did bring them closer together and they're not lying, then they could have just read some other book and had the exact same experience and it would have been something else. If I hadn't written my book, someone else would have and whatever, whatever. There's always a reason why I can tell myself that crash course isn't valuable or my books aren't valuable or my work isn't valuable or my love for my children isn't valuable or whatever it is that's valuable, I can tell myself that it's not.

There's a story somewhere that you can find. Absolutely. I'm not going to fight it with the story. I'm not going to outthink depression. I'm not going to be able to fight with reason what is fundamentally irrational. Right. But I think I can reframe things so that I just don't think that I just understand that I'm not a piece of crap. I'm just not. And that value is inherent to my life the way that it's inherent to every single human life. And I just had this experience where I was on

my bike. I was riding my bike with my buddy, another little trying to get out there. He's pretty fit and I haven't been doing a good job of exercising. It's part of the problem actually. So I was struggling to keep up. I mean, he was, she wasn't, you know, pushing me or anything, but I was trying to push myself, you know? And like, whenever I try to push myself, I say the worst things to myself. I say shocking, shocking things to myself. I say things to myself that if I said to another person out loud would be a crime. You're like, I would not, that, that you should take me away. Like, You're like, I would not, you should take me away. Like this, like this should not, this is not acceptable.

Not socially, but legally. Yeah. Oh no, this is whatever the verbal version of assault is, you know? And I'm sure there's a word for that. Slander. It's definitely slander. It's horrific. Horrific, right? And so I'm like, I'm biking with my buddy,

saying these terrible things to myself. And for the first time, really in my whole life, I stop and I'm like, oh, whoa, whoa. Good God, man. Take it down a notch. You're a 46-year-old guy on a bicycle with your friend in Indianapolis. Like, this isn't the Tour de France.

You're not going to win or lose anything. You're just doing your best. You're in a decaying bacterial colony that's thinking. It's a very delicate situation. Of course you're struggling. Yeah. I mean, I often am comforted and I don't know, you're right that you cannot think it, but I am often comforted by the thought, oh, I am just 30 trillion cells that

don't know they exist. Yeah. Somehow knowing it exists. That is a weird thing. I've never thought about that before. Yeah, the cells don't know they exist, but I, but like when they come together, they make something that does. It's one of the big mysteries. That is a big mystery. How does that not put you on a journey of meaning, Hank? I'm on a journey of meaning. Okay. All right. I'm just saying,

that's a big one. Then the universe coming to you and telling you that you need to have a conversation with your brother that isn't recorded there where you're not on Twitter, that was another journey of on Twitter. That was another Journey of Meaning thing. It was, which reminds me that this podcast is brought to you by my Journey of Meaning. Hank's Journey of Meaning, it's probably going to last the whole time. Also, this podcast is brought to you, and this is a surprise for me, by John's Journey of Meaning. By John's Journey of Meaning. Oh. John's Journey of Meaning reignited.

This podcast is also brought to you by Caitlin Clark. Do had really good seats thanks to the generous people at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. As we were watching this game, I could actually hear Caitlin Clark talking, which is a weird experience. You should not be that close to the basketball. You shouldn't be able to hear Caitlin Clark's conversations with her basketball. You shouldn't be able to hear Caitlyn Clark's conversations with her teammates. You shouldn't be able to interact with the fact that the referees are human beings. You want to talk about a career where you need a strong sense that you're not worthless no matter what people say about you. I think I have it hard. I think John Green, citizen of Tumblr has it difficult. What about a WNBA referee? Not a job for me. No, not a job for me, not at least because I don't know the rules.

That's the biggest problem. And yet I will stand up and yell as if I know the rules. Yeah. That was a travel, which I think is a thing. Several times as I would stand up and Alice would grab me by the bottom of the shirt and pull me back down. Papa, that's cringe. Please don't embarrass us. There's 19,000 people here and a lot of them are aware that you're you and you're here. Yeah, that's wild. Of course, today's podcast is also brought to you by the hit song,

Brothers on a Hotel Bed. Oh, wow. The original song that launched Brotherhood 2.0 into the hearts of thousands. We have a project for awesome message from Rachel. It's to us, John. Oh, great. Oh. We've just talked about how we're not

great at internalizing positive feedback. So here, let's get comfortable with this from Rachel. Okay. Rachel says, this podcast, along with Tangents and Delete This, have been my comfort podcasts throughout the pandemic and especially during this past year and a half since my husband passed in a car accident.

Your humor and genuineness and generosity have been a balm to my soul in some of my darkest moments. You will likely continue for quite some time. Thank you for all that you do. Okay. Rachel, I believe you. I believe you, Rachel. Thank you for your message.

Thanks. Thank you. Hank's crying. Hank is such a crier now that he's had cancer. I don't want to... I can't currently cry because I'm on so many drugs and I'm on like nothing. It's not a joke. My highs are not that high but my lows are a little less low and for now that's what it needs to be but I love that you're crying. I feel

like I did all the crying in our family for like 10 years and now you're doing all the crying. Well, I'm on a journey of meaning. I'll say, it's beautiful, man. It's awesome. But no, that means a lot to us. I'm so accustomed to saying that means a lot to me and not actually letting it mean a lot to me. Yeah.

But I'm letting it mean a lot to me, Rachel. Yeah, I'm just really grateful. Thank you. The other thing, Hank, is that while we're talking about that, it dishonors people's experiences if you deny them even internally. No matter how polite you are, if you say thank you, that means so much to me. Thank you, thank you. It still dishonors their experiences if you don't take it seriously. And so when someone says that they care about you or that they care about your work, which are different things, Hank, just so you know, when someone says they care about you or about your work, they mean it. And it doesn't really honor what they're trying to communicate to

you unless you're willing to do the work to internalize that and take it seriously. And so that's another thing I've been thinking about is like I'm not doing anyone any favors by denying people's experiences. I got a couple of lovely pieces of snail mail. I think I'm gonna talk about my first video when I come back is gonna be about what helped, but a couple of the things I've realized is one, snail mail helped, surprisingly. I don't like snail mail, and I'm not going to, just to be clear, I'm not responding to these letters. There were too many of them. But they were really helpful. They were really useful. They were harder to deny or dismiss somehow because they were physical. Another thing that has really helped is my community is rallying around me.

My psychiatrist actually reached out to me. This is unusual. I have a very good psychiatrist, but my psychiatrist actually reached out to me because they put an article in the freaking paper, which I'm still annoyed about. It's very annoying. That made me very mad. I did not bring it up with you, but I hated it. I thought it was inappropriate. And they kind of acted like the newspaper article sort of implied that I'd like given

an interview when they were just taking quotes from my video. Wow. It really, it bummed me out, but I don't want to talk about it more because I don't want them to write a newspaper article about my disappointment in the newspaper article. It's just like, if anything I could do to make the Indiana newspaper forget that I goddamn exist, that'd be, oh, let's do that. Well, but also like fair enough,

I made a comment in public and I think of Nerdfighteria as being different from the public, but of course like the Indianapolis Star doesn't know that. That's why I feel like it's a violation where I'm like, that's not for you. I do too, but there's no reason the newspaper would know that. And so ultimately, if I'm going to talk about something in public, I got to deal with the public response to that or whatever. But anyway, there was a newspaper story about how I was depressed and stepping away from the internet for a bit. My psychiatrist reached out to me and was like, I don't like hearing about this in the newspaper, which fair enough.

I mean, we had been meeting, but he was like, obviously, I think we need to be more serious about this. It immediately got me in, which I appreciate a lot. Not everybody gets to have really high-quality mental health care, especially in the United States. I'm really grateful for that genuinely. That helped.

My community's stepping up helped. I'm sorry if you can hear my dog, Potato. He's very loud right now. He's just turned one. He's very enthusiastic about being one years old. But also other communities helped, stood up, not just Nerdfighteria, which is obvious and was always going to happen because it's the best. It's also our community in a way that most people can't have a version of that. Most people don't get to have 100,000 people rally around them when something bad is happening, and I'm just really grateful for that, obviously, but that's an insane privilege that very few people get to enjoy.

But the AFC Wimbledon fan community, I might actually start crying because those people just like, you know, just reminded me that I'm cared for, you know, and like that I'm part of something. I'm part of something that's not about me and has nothing, almost nothing to do with me. And I'm a valued member of that community, even though I'm in America. It was incredible actually. The guy who designs the kits, who is one of the co-founders of the club and has been around from the very beginning and is an amazing person, reached out and just really was very kind.

And yeah, I guess I can cry. Oh my gosh, John, did I forget to record? I hope so. I hope you did. I hope you forgot to record again. That would be the best. How amazing would that be if we had another experience that was just for us?

We didn't cry last time. No, no, we didn't. John, thank you for making a podcast with me. If you want to send questions, we will answer some of them in the future. We have to go. But we have to go. Thank you John at gmail.com.

John has overstayed by 10 minutes, which I appreciate, to make me feel like we actually did get the thing done. This podcast is edited by Linus Obenhaus. It was mixed by Joseph Tunamettish. Our communications coordinator is Brooke Shotwell. It was produced by Rosianna Hals-Rojas and Hannah West.

Our executive producer is Seth Radley. Our editorial assistant is Taboki Troc-Rivardi. The music you're hearing now is being podcast by The Great Gunnarolla. And as they say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome. Don't forget to be awesome.