News from Mars and Wimbledon

Hello everyone. Before we get started, I want to tell you about humans. Humans is a podcast where I talk to people about the questions that I have about being a person. And sometimes those conversations are with people who have just had experience being people. like my brother or the editor of the New York Times Game Connections. These are just people who've like done it and tried weird stuff. and so I want to talk to them about how they do it. But I also am talking to people who have maybe some special insight into what's going on with humans like Hannah Ritie, who is a data scientist who studies our impact on the climate, or Jennifer Schuba, who studies demography and what it means for humans that people are having fewer kids than they used to. I also just had a conversation with the author of the Warriors books. These are books about cats that live in the woods I did not realize that this was a person who would have so much insight into humanity, and also into the responsibilities that we have when we create content for children that conversation was so good. It's gonna be a while before it comes out. but oh my go. So yeah, I'm talking to authors and actors and astrophysicists and it's cool and it's really interesting and fun and I've really been enjoying it. I'm so glad it's finally out into the world The overall conceit is just that like it's good to take a little time to zoom out sometimes, to understand that the thing that we are is very weird and unique in the history of our Eth and also the known universe And we don't know how to do it. No one's ever been the kind of thing that we are. And so we have to figure this out And so I want to talk to people about figuring it out New episodes come out every Thursday. You can find it wherever you get podcasts. All you got to do is search humans and then if that doesn't work, add my name ono the end and you'll find it. First episode is with John Green, a guy you've probably heard of Pretty sure It's out now You're listening to a compleomplexly podcast Hello and welcome to deear John and Hank. Or as I prefer to think of it, dear Paige and John. It's a podcast where two friends give you dubious advice, bring you all the weeks's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon and answer your questions. I'm joined today by my ancient friend, Page Lewis My Asian is like, I'm really old. No, you're actually very young, ancient in the sense that that's the nature of your wisdom. You write epics page No, that is yeah. I like to be thought of as like the the Sibil of Kume. Yeah Yeah. and also I feel like I've known you since before Kavvin, I got married. Which is a long time. I have known you since before you got married. and that's pretty cool It is really cool. It's been very, very cool to see. So for those who don't know, Paige is a poet and most recently the author of a novel called Canon. That's one of my favorite books of all time And Canon is a non binary epic. as it says at the very beginning of the book And it's It's this I hope you take this as a comiment, but I think it's the strangest book I've ever read and one of the most enjoyable No, I like that. I think that that thank you, by the way, that's very sweet. I think that everyone so far has been calling it weird But I think that that is a good thing. Yeah. Well, it's not like it shouldn't be a huge surprise to you that people consider it weird because it is a different novel from the ones that people are used to reading Right I was thinking the other day about U How nice your voice is No, well and you called me out of the blue like a month ago And I was in an airport and I was going to be in an airport for the next like six hours and I was really bummed about it And then you called, which is weird because no one ever calls. That's like not a thing people do anymore. And After I talked to you, I was totally fine in the airport. and I think it's because your voice is so calming And that makes me think I know you're not going to be doing the voices for Hollywood ending, right? Probably not no audio books. which it would be interesting to see you do. but I think that you should get a job sort of recording warnings for people U likeike, oh no, a nuclear bomb is coming your way. L if everyone heard it in your voice, I think it would be fine and everyone would accept it Good news and bad news, y'all We've got a tsunami on the horizon, but exactly But There's really no butt to that sentence. Thanks for coming to my party. All right, we are going to answer some questions from our listeners, but first, I just have to say that in addition to being the author of Canon, you are also one of the only people who's ever read Hollywood Ending. and you wrote me a very nice email about it, which I appreciate very much. So thank you. Thank you for being such a good friend and thanks for hosting this podcast with me Yeah, of course. If I hadn't liked it, would I have been allowed on the podcast If you hadn't liked it, I think you would have pretended to like it because that's who you are as a person I think that if I hadn't liked it, I wouldn't have said much to you. I would have been like, you did it, you wrote a book, but I read it and I don't often Not that I don't care to write a lot to people, but I don't often get out of my head long enough to tell people about the things that I love about them. and it was exciting to read your book and then want to every like four words text you about how great your book was. And I love all of it. I even like the people that I hate in the book. Like I don't think of the like the bad guys in your book as evil They just feel they feel like people, which makes it feel much more sinister. Like it just feels very realistic sort of guy and I really love that about the book Yeah, I think the truth of villainy is that it's so much sadder and more depressing than just people who are evil No, that is a good way to think of it. And it is very sad and depressing how the villains work in your books. Well, thanks, I guess. All right Now that we're a real mutual appreciation society, let's answer some questions from our listeners beginning with this one from Alalah, who writes deear John and Paige I just finished listening to the twenty fourteen episode, Page Quick Background in twenty fourteen. I was famamous and it was unpleasant. and I made a podcast about it with my brother, where John expressed the desire to rewrite all of his previous books, to which I asked, whyy don't you release a John's version of the books like Taylor Swif' Taylor's version albums or an annotated edition like Anne Patchet's Beelcanto. I love marginalia and would love to read your marginalia reflected on your own work. My name pronunciation is too confusing to have a name specific sign off But it's Alia or Alia, or Elia or Alia whyy haven't you done that, John? Why haven't you done it is the real question. I haven't done it because I would be too embarrassed to reread my book. books even to annotate them and tell you how horrible they are When was the when was the last time you reread one of your old books I read Paper Towns, which I wrote in two thousand eight. I read in twenty ten to write a movie adaptation of it, to write like a screenplay adaptation And it was a horrible experience on every level. likeike it was a horrible experience to reread the book and be so disappointed by it. It was a horrible experience to try to write a screenplay. And then the worst of it page, if I can be frank and a little bit base The worst of it What was that the This movie studio that paid me to write the screenplay was so disappointed with my screenplay that they withheld the final five thousand dollars of my payment. Oh my gosh. forever Forever I saw the guy who did this at the opening of the Fault N our Stars and I embraced him and whispered into his ear, I remember the five thousand dollars That feels very insulting. It was Eactly, exactly. It was It was insulting They're not even like, we have notes for you. They're just like, all right, you gave us this and here is five thousand dollars less than we do. This is not worthy of what you're contractually obligated to be paid That feels like the worst like that would be a thing that you would as you were writing this screen, like you would tell yourself. Okay, the worst that could happen is they just give me some notes or they say they didn't like a specific part. but no, the actual worst that could happen was they would give you way less money Yeah because they thought it was so bad. Yeah And to think of it being something that you can measure in dollars is also kind of breaking like Yeah thing that you made, it can be measured in money The commodification of art in general is horrifying, right? Like it feels like watching watchatching sausage get made in the worst way, but haaving it laid bare for you like that, like this isn't worth the last five thousand dollars. I assume that you will be a person of so little import in my life that I don't have to pay you is especially annoying, I think You had only waited like two years to read it since having written it, right? Or at least having published it. whichich isn't very long. and I will say I was in high school in two thousand eight, so I wasn't even doing anything cool yet you had already written books, like that's so exciting. but that is also It's been a while since two thousand eight It has been If you were to go back and try to rewrite the book or write a new screenplay Do you think it would come out differently or do you think you would give up? I think it would come out so differently that it wouldn't be the same book anymore. Like can't I can't go back and write looking for Alaska again because it was all so raw then I didn't know what I didn't know in ways that probably are things people like about the book, but not things I like about the book I don't know. this is your first novel. So how are you feeling in the wake of your first novel? Like have you reread it obsessively since it came out Um, no have it, my husband has. He keeps reading it, which is very nice. And he likes it. L he's not reading it to point out where I could have done better or to say I should have gotten less money for it. But I'm not a big f like I don't like the idea of having to go back into that world, especially because I want to focus on writing a new thing Yeah. I also think about how often writers talk about like editing their work and when the editing process is finally, finally done. And I remember the poet Stephanie Burt giving a reading And as she was reading from her poems, she was writing something in her published book like oneage. And I asked her afterwards what she was doing and she said she was editing the poems. And I was like, they're already published. You can't do that. And she's like, off course I can. L I'm going to keep reading them to people and thinking about how to change them once I hear them in the air. And I thought that that was so interesting and also very stressful U Even saying that I've handed this book to a publisher and gotten it printed doesn't mean that I will stop editing it I don't know. I don't want to edit forever. I don't want to think about the books forever. And so I imagine Do a John's version of every book you've ever written would just prevent you from writing new books maybe? Yeah, I also think it would potentially make them worse. do you remember that how Auden changed a bunch of his poems like later in life and like almost exclusively made them worse Yeah, yeah, the poet Marianne Moore did the same thing, where she had like a really long poem about poetry and then everything but three lines and then in I love that poem too. It's such a good poem. in like the The Mar Anne's version afterfter is really kind of funny, but it's not It doesn't have everything that you want from the original poem. and she In one of her books, she published like an epigraph that just said omissions are not accidents meant to take everything out that she took out. And so yeah, I think there's definitely I'm sure for her, she really liked the new additions, but I think that most people prefer the non edited or non omitted from poems Yeah. ye, I think those are the good parts. The first line of Marianne Moore's poem about poetry is one of my all time favorite lines in a poem. I too dislike it. There are things that are important beyond all this fiddle It's so good She's so good. She's so weird. Yama And I always think about her, there's like this sort of anecdote that Elizabeth Bishop would tell about Marianne Moo U, And Elizabeth Bishop was kind of like her protege U But Marianne Moore lived with her mother her entire life and her mother's entire life. So when her mother passed away Elizabeth Bishop and Maryian Moore were like in a they were driving to the funeral and they passed a sign that said something like liizard exhibition this way. And Mar and Moore like perked up for the first time since her mom died. And then she sort of sat back down and she said, Well, maybe on the way back I think it's so sweet and says a lot about her as a poet and the things that she valued and loved. And so yeah, I think that I don't know, I wouldn't want you to write a bunch of new versions of your books. No I wouldn't anything. I wouldn't want you to write a new version of Canon. I would want you to write another book Right? That's the thing. We have so little time left, John. I'm ancient. I know You are ancient. I mean, the good thing about being ancient is that you've kind of always been here and sort of always will be Right, right, right Whereas I feel very mortal, hyper mortal. I mean, who like it might be a thing where someone discovers a way to keep you on the planet for like two hundred years Would you want that page? What is your what is your ideal lifpan I would I would like to die eventually. probablyrobably before a hundred That Okay, cool I spoke to a friend recently who said that they would like to live to be ten thousand years old. and I said, I reject that out of hand. And he said, you're just not thinking very hard about it. You would also like to live to be ten thousand years old. And I was like, I'm almost positive, I wouldn't Well, and are you thinking about it like the Sibil of Kum? L would you want to also have eternal youth? or are you going to be aging all ten thousand years I think you would have to have some kind of stop aging clause in your ten thousand year journey. You have to really think about that. like find all of the ways it could go wrong and get ahead of that before you make your wish Oh yeah, no, I read Tuck Everlasting. You do not want to live forever about that book twice not rewritten. No, I haven't read that one but I feel like I've heard so much about it that I have read it Yeah, I'm actually huge I'm a huge fan of the first Twilight book I's great. I'm unapologetically enthusiastic about it. All right, let's answer another question. This one from Tessla, who writes Dear, Page and John. I've loved writing my entire life. I spent most of my adolescence dreaming of being an author one day. I'm now twenty five and I work in a library and it still gives me a thrill to get to touch so many words and worldds between pages But in the past three years or so, I've failed entirely to write much of anything. I still love writing and the mechanics of storytelling, but given the choice I can't get myself to write even though I have the time. I feel weighted down by the expectations I've put on myself for two decades, and further, I'm afraid that I actually don't have anything to say at all. I feel paralyzed and the longer this goes on, the more I shame myself for not digging myself out. Do you have any advice on how to get started again asset Esa Oh Yeah, I mean, that's such a I would love to work in a library though, so I'm a little bit envious already about Tessa's position, right? You get to work in a library and you get to eventually wr Yeah How do we how do we get tested or right How do we get back there I think that It is the weight of expectations as much as anything else. And then secondarily the feeling that when you write something down It's, as my friend Danielle Aler Cohn says, it's a little bit of a faint reflection of what was in your mind. so There's always a disappointment, I think, between the imagining of it and the languification of it Uh there's always something, you know, that feels frustrating in that process byy. It's still worth it And I think the key is to give yourself permission to suck So like tell yourself G gota su Nobody starts playing the piano and that later that day says, well, I'm ready for Carnegie Hall Right. Yeah. And I don't even want to meet that person if they No theyful. Yeah. It would be the worst person because it would be c wor thing. And I think that yeah, we all suck U when we start and we kind of just we move toward the horizon of like sucking less as we write more, but I don't know that we ever reach the like I am completely great and should go hes at Carnegie Hall. Maybe there are people who do that, but like not the vast majority of working writers, you know? like the vast majority of working writers are practiced at something that they've spent a long time on and that they're getting that they're hopefully still getting better at Right? Like I heard your husband on stage recently say that he hopes he hasn't written his best book and I feel the same way. like I want to be embarrassed by my past work because I want to be able to make progress from it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that I don't know. I think that would I don't believe in a lot of absolutes, but I do believe that if you write more you will get better. like the more you write, the better you will get. And I think that that just means you start at one point and Yes, you suck, but if you write the next day and the next day and the next day, you're going to suck less than you did on that first day. But it's okay to suck because no one necessarily has to see it right away. Yeah Well, one thing I tell myself almost every day that I spend writing something new is that I don't have to write anything today that ends up in the book And so if I'm writing terribly which I usually am, That's fine because it's not going to end up in the book anyway No one's gonna to look at it. You can burn it eventually so that no one has to see it in some library that's bought all of the rights to all of your work, right? Yeah Yeah. I don't know if you're worried about that at all, but I want to burn everything after after I die I don't think you should. I'm opposed to that. When Kafka did it, I was disappointed in him and I'll be disappointed in you. But he didn't do it. He was betrayed. Well, when Kafka tried to do it, I was disappointed in him. You didn't even know him. It's like how it's like how Keats's friends ruined his epitaph Or was it epigraph? How did they ruin it? I didn't know they ruined it. With the you mean the something written water? He wanted his epigraph to be here lies one whose name was writt in water. And instead they wrote like, here lies a great English poet who insisted that his epigraph be here lies, one whose name was written water Which misses the whole freaking point of having your name writ in water That's so funny. I love that. They were like, no way, buddy, we're gonna really remember you. Yeah ye yeah It's actually a very sweet thing for the friends to do if I know it ruins the sort ofp epitaph, but still That's near swe I always get my epithaph and my epigraph mixed up Epigraph is what you put at the beginning of the book Yeah. And epitaph is what you put at the end of your life You start here, you end here. Right. I I think that Mbe to maybe we need to scare ourselves a little bit with like jump starting our writing. And one thing that Cave and I did early on was, well, it was Cave's idea. I would have never wanted to do this. but He said we had just started dating and he wanted us to write a poem every day and go out with each other And I have never taken writing more seriously than I did for that month where we did that because we were just starting to fall in love. and if I wrote a really bad poem, it was just like maybe he won't love me if I really if I do not complete this sonnet in the way that I want to. And so I think that that could be a way of really frightening yourselves into writing is to be like, I have to show it to a friend. And they know that I have to show it to them by the end of this like set time limit U and I don't know. It really helped me, even though I'm a very anxious person. U it helped me get more serious. but I think that also just routine really helps just like waking up every morning and writing for as long as you can, even if that's just like fifteen minutes. I think that helps take some of the fear and anxiety out of the process Yeah, it also takes some of the sense that this is a magical thing that's removed from most people's reality out of the process, where you just it's like builduing a chair. you know, like it's it's something that you you do every day and a craft that you get better at over time rather than like Uh, you know, something that is made in ivory towers that are somehow distant or different from you Like as soon as you put the last period on the work, it goes to the New Yorker or something. Right, right, right Uh your story found Writing poems with Kover reminded me of when Sarah and I first started dating. I had sold looking for Alaska to a publisher, but it wouldn't be published for another two years. And I remember sharing a draft with her like right when we started dating. And she called me And this was before cell phones. So she called my landline from her landline. And the first thing she said was, it's a good thing I liked that book, John, because if I hadn't, I don't think this would have worked Oh my Godd. Yeah. I know that's amazing. but that's kind's a compliment. Yeah, ye Like this is like a new thing and are if you write something she really hates, how can she even look at you But it's also great that you had already like written the book and sent it off and had it accepted before I am Like or while you and Sarah were getting serious because think like I don't know, imagine trying to go on a date like right now Like it would be impossible. Like how do you how do you know this person likes you for like who you are rather than just like who they see you are on like on the internet or when they listen to you. Imagine dating someone who has listened to all of your podcasts Right. And you're like talking to them and like asking them like what they're interested in then they ask you what you're interested in and you say AFC Wimbledon and then they say I know But like I know everything that you've ever said about them. Right That would be awful. Glad that doesn't have to happen for you I do think that I feel really this is one of the things I wanted to write about in Hollywood Eing and one of the ways in which my life is different from their lives, many ways, is that I had I was settled By the time all that stuff happened, like I had kids. I had a normal life. I had a dog. I had, you know, like I was where I was going to be for the foreseeable future And if it happens when you're twenty two or seventeen, like it does for a lot of internet creators or like it does for a lot of young actors these days, canan't imagine how destabilizing it is. L no wonder they end up mostly dating famous people because like who the hell else understands what it's like to be them Absolutely Yes, I think about that all the time. like how hard it would be to be like an actor, to be famous and just constantly in some form of spotlight and to yeah, you can only really date other people who haveve gone through that And that sounds like a nightmare. And so it totally makes sense that you have like Ki and Juniper even though Kai is very, very early in the sort of acting world, he's very new to it It's still going to be something he can't really share with Normies Yeah Yeah, the way that like when we go out for a drink of club soda. I feelelt like I had to clarify that. You and I talk shop in a way I can't talk shop with the vast majority of people, right? Like And it's just yeah, there's something very, very weird and isolating about fame. even small amounts of it. But the more of it that you get, the more isolating it becomes until you're like, you know, Tom Hanks or whatever and you can't or Barack Obama and you can't walk into a restaurant without everybody turning their head for the rest of your life Yeah, well, and then imagine all of the terrible pictures of you that wind up on the internet Oh yeah Awful, awful pictures. Yeah. suuper embarrassing Um It's funny that I wanted so badly to be famous when I was in my twenties. but this let's move on to another question. This one from anonymous, who writes deear John and Page In a recent episode, you talked about how you made it to adulthood without knowing that moonlight exists, which is true Pge. I did not know that moonlight existed until I was about twenty two That's fine Well, not it's not ideal, but I did grow up in Orlando where there isn't a lot No there's nothing in Orlando. That's right. There's a we of metaphorical and also literal darkness John was twenty two when he realized moonlight existed, and I'm twenty two too, but I don't feel like an adult. I al feel I'm almost finishing college and I don't have a job yet. so I've been thinking a lot about becoming an adult and everything I'm going to miss about college. I know you've talked about how there's a lot to look forward to in adulthood, but I don't see it. My question is, what can I look forward to in adulthood and what do you miss most about being twenty two, anxious about adulthood Anonymous H Is there anything you miss about being? I was just yeah, I was just thinking about that I can't say that I do miss much about being twenty two. I think at the time I thought I was very adult I remember at one point going out to get drinks with one of my college professors around that time and thinking that was very cool. And now I look back on it and I'm like, man That was weird. Yeah, unfortunately that might even weird. We had not but that was a cool thing to do U but depends on the drink. Right, R. was I didn't know what to order because I hadd never really ordered drinks before. And so I just ordered what they ordered, which was vodka and red Bull. Oh wow Yikes Yeah, it was awful. I was thinking we were sort of on on a club soda kind of drinking vibe. No, no. now we are. now we're Now we are. now we are on that. What is there? do you miss anything about twenty two? I mean, besides you thought you wanted to be famous at that age Yeah, no, I don't miss that. I don't No, I don't miss much about being twenty two. I think it's really, really challenging. The if I miss something, it's also something I'm glad I don't have, which is that when you're twenty two, everything is still possible. Like I remember applying for jobs as a medical transcriptionist and as a paralegal and as a religion teacher and as an English teacher and having no idea which one of those jobs I wanted to get That's so many things. Yeah. Yeah, you don't really know what you I had just got into gr school for writing and was already teaching. Like I jumped right into teaching while I was in grad school, which meant that the students I was teaching were just like a few years younger than me. Yeah. That was a very, very strange experience, but because I still teach, I've noticed myself getting much older with just the references that I make don't land as much as they used to because I'm farther and farther away from the age of my students. And so that has been like a really interesting and humbling experience because you can sort of map how much older you get every year just based on how much they laugh or do not laugh at your jokes I remember I was speaking at a high school when the Fald Nar Stars came out I was speaking at a high school in like San Francisco or something And I was like, know how I know how to make these kids like me and think that I'm cool I'm going to reference The musical artist K E dollar sign H A. ye whom I called Keisha But who goes by Kesa? Yeah, you really messed that up immediately And then there was the second level of it not landing, which was that they no longer cared about Kesha. So like in addition to mispronouncing Kesha's name They were like, also Kesa isn't cool anymore. I was like, Oh boy, I've really. And then that's when I just that's when I accepted that I need to I need to stick with my level of references because they know they know when you're talking down to them. they know when you're trying to be cool to them. They have a sense of these things. and if they don't have a sense of them They should, right? Like if they don't have a sense that it's potentially weird for your professor to take you out and get you drunk on vodkin Red Bull, like they should Yeah. Well, and it's like they they're ready to be like, donon't try to connect with us. L I think that's what's going through everyone's brain when I try to do something like that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And wait or don't try to connect with us as a peer because like we don't see you as a peer. We see you as someone we admire, as a teacher, as like someone we look up to and like you've got to accept that role even if it's uncomfortable for you No, and it's I am I am that is another isal march. I'm just like always marching toward accepting that I am much older than my students. And I think that's fine. But what about what do you like now? What is there something what is something to look forward to? There's so much to look forward to. L you can't when you're twenty two, you can't know what it's like to have had a friend for twenty five years Yeah. You can't know what it's like to have those foundational relationships feel very like settled. and Also You fall in love with either birds or trees. This is something that I didn't know about, but like you hit middle age and you're like, you either become a bird person or a tree person. I became a tree person. Oh and it's lovely Yeah my my affection for trees is is an genuine astonishment to me No, that's amazing. Have you learned the names of the trees? orr is it more of just you appreciate them because they are trees Well, I do, I have learned the names of the trees, most of the ones at least in my yard. know I've got a little little stand of trees behind my.. You do. and great. Thank you and I go and I hang out with them and sometimes one of them falls down and I feel really bad. I have the same feeling there was a tree because we have a few trees in our backyard and one of them like split in half during a storm. and I was like it was as sad as seeing like an animal like get really old or something? Like I didn't want to see that tree fail at being a tree Yeah and it bumps me out every time I see it I still think like of individual trees that are in my life that they're kind of more important than I am. Like they're serving such an important purpose and they're like holding all the ground together and they're also reaching up and turnurning carbon dioxide into oxygen and all that stuff. and I just I just think that what they're doing is really extraordinary and worthy of celebration. and I kind of love them and I didn't have that feeling when I was twenty two. I thought that like nature was this sort of outside problem and I was an inside cat Well, you did grow up in Orlando where nature sometimes feels like an outside problem. Be it's so hot there. It so It's so hot and it's so humid and you just feel gross all the time. I went to school in Tallahassee, Florida. and ye didn't have a car didn't know how to drive And so I was walking about three miles to campus every day. Wow And I had to bring a change of clothes because it was so disgusting to like get inside and be completely sweaty. And I'm sure that I smelled really bad for all of my times teaching. And so I'm sure that's another reason why my students didn't want to connect with me U, but But yeah, no, trees are great. I think I'm a bird person. Like I'm a big tree person, but I think I am much more delighted when I see like any bird. L even like I think robins are amazing. I think there's a way in which some people get are used to particular birds that they see all the time, but I think that they're also incredible. Yeah, the everyday birds like pigeons and roobins and cardinals, you start to think are just ordinary, but if you pause to actually look at them, there's nothing ordinary about them. They look like the dinosaurs they are They're so great. And pigeons especially, there's people that just go around and help pigeons in cities. like when they get string wrapped around their feet, there are just people that go around and catch them and take the string off their feet so it doesn't hurt them And I want to be one of those people one day. I think that that's what I'm looking forward to with aging is like one day, I will catch pigeons and help them. Maybe I love that Yeah I love that. So there's that to look forward to in aging, trees and birds and meeting people that you love, like new people possibly building a chair of some sort. L it's sure gonna to look great, but you're gonna want people like Cave recently built a bench for the first time. He loves it I Built a bench with my dad when I was a kid. I still think about that bench all the time What happened to it Well, we had to leave it in when we left Florida So someone's enjoying it right now, I bet. Hopefully, but the important thing was leaving Florida page Yeah, yeah, it took me a while to leave Florida. I was like maybe twenty six when I left Florida And did you grow up there? Yeah, I grew up in I grew up near the Everglades U, and every every sort of field trip was just to go into the Everglades and Gross stuff. It was great I knew that, but I just wanted to ask for the benefit of our listeners. No. You didn't know that I had ever spent any time in Florida. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I never wanted to live in Orlando. No nobody go it's such a nightmare there. Well I should say for our Orlando based listeners that Orlando is a better town than it was in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties It has more cultural offerings, it has fewer, hopefully bullies. But it was not the best place for me personally to grow up How long were you there until I was fourteen Oh wow, okay. Yeahah, that would be the time for bullying too Yeah, middle school was pretty rough, man. It was really hard. it's just The thing the thing I think about now that I couldn't think about then is that school was not safe for me which was very stressful and really hard and difficult to navigate But for so many kids at my school, home was not safe for them.. And home was very safe for me And so You know, including kids who bullied me home might have not been safe for them And you know, they were acting out uh dynamics that they probably saw at home And so You know, now I can look back on it with a very different understanding of what happened than when I was experiencing it when I just desperately wanted to be liked and accepted That's a very nice way to think about it. This episode of Dear Hank and John is brought to you by Quintince. Summer changes the way I want clothes to work. I want things to be lighter, more breathable. I also want to look, though like I did not give up, whichich is a narrow little target. Which is why Quintince makes sense to me. They make high quality essentials that feel elevated without doing the luxury brand thing where you look at the price and immediately become suspicious of whether civilization can continue. Their whole thing is well made basics without the luxury markup. 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That's L EESA d. com prromo code deear Hank for twenty five percent off select mattresses plus an extra fifty dollars off. Show your support for the show. Letem know we sent you after checkout. Lisa. com promo code deear Hank. All right, let's answer this question from B Ba Baoba Dear John and Paage, I love the sun. If I say I love you to the sun now, when will the light slash love it might send back to me actually reach me? Do I need to consider how long my thank you takes to get to the sun? or do you think the sun can hear my heart immediately? Thank you for your hit podcast for twenty one year old kids H I think that nothing travels faster than light, right? Ining love. And so it's going to take seven minutes to get to the sun and seven minutes to get back, or am I wrong What if it's a little bit heavier, though Like you think that Like love might be slightly slower than light Right, so nothing's faster than light, but lots of things are slower like me Yeah, ye. so far. like we could probably figure out how to get to that speed eventually, but not now. No, and it seems like things start to break up when they get really close to that speed and that's not something I want to have happen to me or indeed to my love. So right Let's say that Adam Max Love travels half the speed of light. That I could see us getting to So then you're looking at about a thirty minute round trip for the L to arrive get ingested by the sun, the sun to process it because you don't just like hear I love you and say I love you right back. You have to really take it in and then respond with your own separate love I'd say half an hour Yeah, so it's like if you watch an episode of the Simpsons with commercials then at the end of the episode you will have heard back from the Sun Yeah, I think that's about right alsoso, the idea of saying I love you to someone and then they have to take a lot of time to think about it before they say anything back, like whatever that amount of time is sounds like an eternity to me and would be like my version of hell a little bit. It is just like the waiting part of whether or not they're going to say anything back and hopefully it is a nice thing. But it very much might not be The first time I said I love you to Sarah, Um It was Easter Sunday, two thousand four And I would say there were twoo to three seconds. beforefore she said she responded And she didn't say I love you too. She said, I love you As if like she had thought of it herself. Yeah, ye. she's like, I really said it at first Yeah U But those were a long two to three seconds for sure. because I was like I was like, have I made a terrible error Right, right. And there's part of you maybe that wants to be like, never mind, I didn't say anything Yeah, yeah, yeah. ye yeah. It's a regret. I have definitely regretted saying I love you before, but not that time I mean, it's fine. I think that it probably was good at the time for you to do it. It might have prevented someone from crying. whichich is good Oh, I think you're thinking of me as much more of a u Dumper than a dumpie, but in fact I am a dumpy. Yeah So I would say I love you and they would be like, cool, cool. sorry sorry, sorry that this is so awkward Oh, yeah, no, that sounds awful. I don't want to experience that anyime. So when I said I love you to Cave, it was through postal. like it was mailing we were mailing letters to each other and so wow quite a long time to hear back and get it in writing. So that several episodes of the Simpsons. So many episodes of the Simpsons. was pretty it was pretty rough. I don't know why I did that to myself Did he not call you immediately U No, I don't think he did. I think he want like he liked the idea of the response coming back in the same way that like I had given it to him That's very romantic. It's very sweet but also it is very, very Anxiety inducing for a few days Yeah,, I can imagine P Probably wouldn't do that again. No, that's a big one to hold on to All right Paage before we get to the All importantort News from Mars and ASC Wimbledon I have to ask you one more question It's from Mahi, and it's a thinker. It's a deep one. Dear John and Piage, I've been thinking about our responsibility toward others. There is a neat idea that we should be considerate of others as long as it does not affect us in a significant way. However, that's a very blurry line. How does our responsibility to ourselves end and our responsibility to others begin Has anyone else received a memo or is this something that I miss? Longtime admirer Mahi I think this is like the biggest question in the world Like where does our obligation to others end and our obligation to ourselves begin and what do we owe to others versus what do we owe to ourselves is like the hardest question and the most interesting question that there is out there And I feel like my impulse is to answer it in a jokey way because I don't know I don't know the answer yet, I'm still figuring that out. But I am thinking about a subreddit called Girl Dinner.