what's wrong with taking the back streets?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ส.ค. 2024
- In which John fails to draw circles while discussing the drawing of circles and how to count to 170,000.
The Anthropocene Reviewed: www.wnycstudio...
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Hi. I talk much more about circles, obsessiveness, and repetition in the Hiroyuki Doi episode of The Anthropocene Reviewed: www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed/episodes/anthropocene-reviewed-works-art-agnes-martin-and-hiroyuki-doi
UPDATE: I have just reached 3,400 circles. May do a livestream tomorrow to chart my progress. -John
p.s. There will be a big-ish announcement about TAR next week, so there's never been a better time to start listening. -John
Tell 👏 me 👏 now!
“Start listening” as if somehow I haven’t listened to every single episode multiple times
omg TAR book is happeninggggggggg
Update: I WAS RIGHT!!!!!!!!
TAR? The best podcast ever created?
This is a mini anthro and I love it.
This felt like an indoors Thoughts From Places.
The only Place I'm able to have thoughts from at the moment! -John
Same! Stay safe there.
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John should call this artwork "Doodlie-doo"
Excellent punning my friend
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Circles in the doodlie-doo!
Ding dong doodly doodly doo. Nathan Explosion...
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Took me til the end to realize why 170,000. I appreciate the effort to recognize the size of a number that a lot of our leaders are brushing off
A message for the future, when god-willing The Current Situation has receded. Today deaths in the US from the 2020 Covid pandemic exceeded 170,000
And 589 just yesterday. -John
It look me until this comment.
+, People need to talk about this.
I didn't realize it had gotten that high. I've been avoiding that subset of news. 💔
170,000 + people have died from covid-19 in America. He was talking about contextualising how much that actually is and I paused for a second and thought. No matter what it’s in relation to or what the rate is or whatever. 170,000 people. Millions of people are grieving at the moment. And that is the real tragedy😔
PBS honors 5 Covid victims each week and it really brings home that all 170000 of them had an important place in life. Always brings me to tears.
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Thanks for giving some context for non americans!
John is like that wise uncle whose advice you can stand and listen to him talk for hours.
Uncle Iroh!
I totally can listen to him talk about anything
@@lostinfantasy I only just watched Avatar for the first time during this social isolation time and I feel like I've been let in to an amazing secret. Uncle Iroh is just the best.
+. I had an abusive father growing up, and honestly John and Hank have filled in. Life advice, tips for dealing with mental health and mistakes and honesty and honor, in-jokes, a community... It's a warm feeling.
John is Iroh confirmed
John, do you know a painter Roman Opałka? Throughout his life he was painting a series of paintings called "1965 / 1 - ∞", each painting was big (196 x 135 cm) filled with tiny numbers, in the beginning white on black background, later he started to make each next painting 1% lighter than previous, so the background was getting lighter and lighter, he was hoping to reach number 7,777,777, but when he died he reached 5,607,249. He said he was trying to paint the time of one existence.
Yes I love those paintings so much! I am very glad this is something we share. It is sad that he never got to 7,777,777, but he did paint the time of his existence. -John
I did not know of him, but when I read your comment I looked him up and these paintings really are beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing :)
This is interesting because Opalka is similar for the Czech word for "to repeat". Czech and Polish are both Slavic languages and share many similarities. Somewhat to my disappointment, when I looked up "to repeat" in Polish, it is not similar to the Czech, and therefore not similar to Opalka. I would have loved it if it was.
@@twodimedeal I just got back to Poland from a week in Prague. I think it was easier for me, a native English speaker, to figure out what signs in Czech meant than for my native Polish speaker friend! lol
@@vlogbrothers He did, indeed. And, interestingly, his death made his work finished, instead unfinished, kinda strange to think about it.
John, this might be one of my favorite videos you've ever made.
Thanks :) -John
@@vlogbrothers thank you 💙
Is cheese doodles guy in that list of favorites?
Danielle P. Yes
this feels like a lovely, if existential call back to old vihart videos. all these years later circles and contemplating the vastness of the universe still hits home for me and brings comfort in uncertain times
triangle
Snek snek snek snek snek snek snek snek snek snek
Being in college it’s hard for my mindset around productivity to categorize actions as anything other than “Studying” or “Avoiding Studying”. Unlearning that has been my silver lining of quarantine.
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My repetitive doodle of choice is tiny flowers - also a kind of circle drawing. Thanks for sharing 🌸
Mine is cubes. The antithesis of circles.
mine is interlocking squiggle-shapes
Mine tooooooooo!!!!!!!
Mine are those 5 pointed stars you draw with 5 straight lines
Mine is heart chains (one right side up, one upside down over and over)
Knitting has been shown to increase delta wave patterns in the brain. I highly recommend it.
i knit and crochet to self soothe my anxiety! 10/10
Knitting is AMAZING for my anxiety. I love just sitting down and putting all my worry and energy towards what I'm doing. Watching something slowly take shape like that is so incredible.
I tend to realize how much I need knitting when I am too stressed out to knit. Then, just one row seems a big undertaking but at the same time, once I found a rhythm, it really makes a difference.
@Freya Eli I've knit so many random squares that didn't have a 'purpose' beyond just being something calming for my hands to do, because anything more complicated than that was too stressful. Recently I took all the squares I made over the years and sewed them together into a blanket; it's quite lopsided because the pieces were made from different yarns & in varying sizes, but I love it - the reminder of the comfort it gave me while making it comforts me now when I huddle under it.
Crochet does the same and for me it’s easier
It's such a pernicious lie that life is about what we produce. It makes us feel that our time and effort are only valued when there is salable output. But activities like walking with your kids in the woods produce something to be valued much more highly, and are the true treasure of a life well-lived. I think we all feel the pressure between being and producing, and I wish I knew an effective way to find better balance between them.
++++ -John
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Oh so true.
I would simply like to say that this sounds exactly like John
My grandma just died from COVID-19. She was 95. She was insanely tough. She had survived the great depression, many wars, she smoked for 60 years and only had COPD to show for it, @80 her heart stopped for 25 min (they never learned why) but she bounced back from that, @85 she broke her leg so bad they have to replace the bone with metal but she learned to walk again. They put her in hospice care shortly after, but after 8 years, they took her off hospice becuase she just wasn't dying.😂 She had thrived in hospice and made some many friends (most who have died, because they were in hospice too). My mom had to jump through hoops to get her back into hospice care (they are more attentive to hospice patients). And yet she died from COVID-19, in a nursing home. One of the best in our area. She was a part of their one and only outbreaks of COVID-19, long after neighboring nursing homes had outbreaks.
I'm filled with so much anger. The nursing home was on lockdown. The nurses were responsible, safe, good people, and they had the record to show for it. It probably came from someone else acting irresponsibly at a store, exposing the nurses to it. Someone not following CDC guidelines killed my grandma, and I don't know what to do with my rage and sadness!
I am so sorry to hear this. Your grandma sounds like an amazing woman.
What an inspiring woman! Thank you for sharing her story. I hope you will continue to feel her love in your family and in your memories so that her perseverance lives on with you.
i didn’t realize the number until the end. and then i whispered a soft “oh.”
Did you whisper a soft "oh" for last years flu deaths?
Because there were quite a few.
You see people in the comments trying to be all profound saying "589 today".
This isn't the black plague. It's a more rough flew than normal. 97% Survival rate.
But you get all these pretentious people trying to signal their virtue as if it's all
some profound thing we're dealing with.
IT'S NOT!
@@SimonHergott I think you missed the point of the video. This may not be profound, but it is death all the same. And death is extremely personal. And what makes covid deaths hurt even more is that it could have largely been prevented if people exercised public health measures and if governments had the moral imperative to exercise public health policy. The symptoms are also much more rigorous compared to the flu, we don't have immunity to covid in the large percentage of the population, and the people who are susceptible are not quite the same.
To merely compare deaths of infectious diseases by survival rates and deaths per year is taking away the significance of this pandemic and the importance of empathizing with human life in general (and how death can be so much more earth shattering during shelter-in-place and social distancing protocols). Please reconsider next time before scolding someone about how death should be seen right now
@@emalinel I am recovering from covid, I contracted it back in march. it knocked me down for a week (a slight fever, dry cough, but no loss in taste, my body felt weak and i ached all over) and then two weeks later it knocked me down again for another week (no fever, dry cough, and a sore throat, aches returned) While not as intense as the flu i had when i was younger, it has taken a lot longer to get over a bit like glandular fever, i still think I'm recovering, my glands are still slightly swollen and the tinnitus remains a nuisance, from where it had infected my auditory nerve.Who knows i might still die from it, although it doesn't seem to be replicating itself in my throat and nose any more, (according to swabs taken) So apparently i'm not contagious anymore.
I have received no real treatment except lots of fluids, paracetamol, and chicken soup. I was told by doctors that i just had to let my body create it's own immune response. I didn't go to hospital as my oxygen levels didn't drop severely.
To be honest the worst thing about it was the anxiety and fear caused by the media coverage written by mostly scientifically illiterate journalists and their opinions. I'm 38 , i think we all need to become more acquainted with our own mortality sooner rather than later to help reduce the anxiety it causes, so it doesn't confound the stess that illness brings.
@@CygnusEight I'm glad you're in the clear and I completely agree with you. Facing and accepting mortality (that we will all die one day) sooner than later is good for all of us
@@SimonHergott The daily mortality rate worldwide from all causes is around 130.000, thats almost 1 million deaths per week. Kinda puts covid deaths into perspective, don't succumb to the fear people, it'll probably kill you more quickly.
I hate that people see my fear over Covid as simply a symptom of my anxiety disorder. I have many irrational fears but that hundreds of thousands of people will die from a disease that we failed to contain is not one of them.
SAME. thank you for putting this into words.
I had to read that second sentence a couple times. Wow.
This is true. I hate the stigma attached to being overly cautious right now. People think you're overreacting but, in fact, they are the ones under-reacting. Your fears are rational. OUR fears are rational. And honestly, they should be fears that everyone shares. Sure people die everyday. But what people fail to realize is that that number has increased rapidly by an undetermined factor of which we have *no* control. There is no cure. There is no vaccine (yet). Therefore, until those things come into existence, we *need* to have these 'irrational' fears.
YES. Thank you.
It was and is the greatest failure, to provide good leadership that I have seen. The level of incompetence of Trump is almost inconceivable.
I can just imagine John and Hank over FaceTime on the weekends dishing it out over who gets which Allstar lyrics next video lol
I am so grateful for the Green brothers!
John is like our comforting grandfather who we only call when we need. And he’s always there.
But John, 10 trillion seconds ago, all the atoms that constitute my body, still totally existed. Isn't that amazing?
Anyone But me technically some of them came about from the decay of other atoms more recently than that
Your body contains a measurable amount of carbon-14. None of the carbon-14 in your body existed 10 trillion seconds ago. Carbon-14 has a half life of 5730 years. It's generated at the very top of the atmosphere by cosmic rays whacking nitrogen atoms and converting them to carbon-14. These atoms get uptaken by plants, and when you eat plants (or, when you eat OTHER things that ate plants), your body incorporates that carbon-14. Your carbon-14 is new, and that, to me, is super neat.
@@thomasmurphy8749 With our addition of so much carbon to the atmosphere, we're throwing off the ratios of carbon-14. So much so, that in the future it may be impossible to use it for carbon dating.
@@lyreparadox interesting, is that because of CO2?
I mean Aboriginal people (from the country that is now called Australia) also existed that long ago. Aboriginal people are thought to date back over 65,000 years
This reminds me of an idea I had when I was a kid that Presidents should get a dash tattooed on their body for every soldier that dies as a consequence of the war they were sent to fight. I think I'd expand that to every death directly attributed to their (in)actions.
Trump would be a 'black person'
The ending made me sob. The level of empathy you are attempting is astounding. I wish our leaders would do the same.
This was lovely. Thank you John!
Hey now, nerdfighteria! How's the self care? Are you hydrated? Have you eaten? Taken your meds? Have you moved your body recently? Done something necessary? something fun? If so, maybe take a break and draw some circles, or take a nice nap! Whatever self care you've done today is really good. I'm glad you're looking out for your self. Stay safe, take care, and DFTBA!
Thank you for this! Take care, and hope you have a nice week! DFTBA!
@@aditi_05 Anytime! I will do my best. You too, okay? Best wishes!
@@untappedinkwell I will :) Best wishes!
You actually reminded me to take my meds, thank you so much ^_^
@@sunnrock8585 Of course! Always happy to help. Have a good day!
John can DOODLE! well I know all of us can, but that looks sooo satisfying and beautiful. Thank you so much for having a way with words that often, if not always, express how I feel but not knowing how to describe
A really meditative way to reflect on what I feel we're all afraid to truly examine, just how much pain this pandemic is causing. I hope you share the completed picture.
Oh my god this looks so soothing
I finally have an answer to “who would you want to have dinner with?” It’s you John. Thank you for your grounding insight that is both calming and though provoking. I am both happy and sad from this video and that’s ok.
Circles remind me of the Sanskrit idea and word "Samsara" , which means : existence as a cyclical progression, encompassing life and death, and going beyond them, by always returning to them.
Each tiny circle being a life
Your videos have been calming my brain so much lately. So much so that my emotions bubble up and I find myself crying. Thank you for being the catalyst to feeling safe enough to feel anything. ❤️
It’s such a beautiful idea to make art inspired by artists you love. Even if you’re not “good” at it.
John, listening to you speak is like therapy for me. It helps me re-frame how I see the world and gives me hope. Thanks for sharing your thoughts all of these years; I hope you know how much you help people. ♥
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How can all of their videos no matter the context bring me joy and a feeling of safety? Purely amazing❤
Something cool about circles also that I've thought of is that even with incredible precision, it'd be impossible to draw one perfectly, as Pi is an irrational number with no truly defined value, and since the size of a circle is defined primarily by Pi, you are unable to get a truly accurate and perfect circle without an ending to Pi.
The square root of 2 is irrational an you could draw it by drawing a right triangle whose legs have a length of 1. Not being able to draw a perfect circle has to do with the imprecision of our tools not an inherent quality of the circle.
Even using a compass?
I don't understand how pi being irrational would mean that a perfect circle can't be made.
Wouldn't you say that's kinda circular logic?
A circle Isn't defined by Pi. A circle is defined as a shape that has a point that is equidistant from all other points on the shape. ( there are much more rigorous ways of stating that but you get the gist) Pi is just a tool derived from that relationship.
this is interesting. I spent a lot of time when i was younger counting. Just counting, seeing how high i could get before i lost focus. I think i might try circle drawing. that could help me focus on other things as well
I misread the title as “what’s wrong with taking back the streets” and kept waiting for it to circle around to a ~hot take~ on protesting (also was surprised by the break from lyric-titles), but like this video much better than the one I expected!!
I also read this and until I saw your comment I was also expecting something regarding protests or reopening etc
But that's the name of the video ?
Allison Avery i flipped “the” and “back” 🙃
@@nancyclark2722 ah, nice
Throughout my life, I have learnt to always put others first, the greater good. I have helped a lot of people, and that has made me happy, but now that I'm approaching college and have to take my own decisions, I find that I've done it so much I don't know what I want anymore.
Quarantine has given me a reason to create, and through art and poetry and the creations of others, I have been remembering what is like to produce even if it doesn't help anyone but myself. And that is really nice.
When I was in elementary school, I used to love standardized tests. That seems bizarre to me now, but I remember I loved filling in the circles, and I loved the idea that a machine would analyze the patterns I'd made. I was an anxious kid, and I wonder if my circles gave me the same comfort as your circles do now.
"The circles gave him relief from the sadness and grief."
Like, what vlogbrothers videos provide to Nerdfighteria?
I told my therapist that I started drawing circles, inspired by this video, and how it was calming and helped me get out of my own head. He loved the idea, and said that he would start recommending the idea to other clients. Thank you John ❤️
I've been drawing countless tiny circles similar to this during pandemic times and I couldn't have put a finger on the why or the drivers until you mentioned Hiroyuki Doi's grief and it all suddenly clicked in. I'll keep drawing circles over here and I look forward to seeing more of your circles that you're drawing over there and Hiroyuki's circles wherever they are. Thanks John, for putting the words together for my rattled brain.
Okay I love this but also how dare you talk about producing joy and not quote ABFE
I was waiting for him to quote Hank's book!
I didn't realize that's why I was thinking about "producing joy" until after I filmed! (But anyway thanks hank.) -John
@@vlogbrothers hahaha wow! Really the whole first part I was thinking this was another elaborate form of book promo ;) but I actually love that
Two brothers getting in each other's heads. x)
John already talked about producing joy in a different video in which he shared the quote from ABFE: th-cam.com/video/E5Q0tuGAC3k/w-d-xo.html
So this is particularly astute message for my life. I have ADHD and I take a medication for it, but it isn't Ritalin, like I used to take. No, Ritalin lasted for about the entire school day. But it had loads of negative health effects and hampered my sociability. Now I take a newer drug, but it only seems to give me an intense burst of focus for about an hour. Some times even less than that. This means I have to concentrate all my productivity in to that hour and the hour after when it bleeds off. It's so stressful and I need to guard this concentrated time jealously but I'm always in a noisy house with every room except the bathroom occupied at all times. When I don't use it well, I feel the guilt, comparing my work with what I can do on a good day in 2 hours, about 700 creative words average. At university, it's always too little time. On holidays I never know what I can do with it, or if what I'm working is even worth my medication.
I've had to come to terms with the fact that my life will only have a certain amount of concentrated hours in my life, one hour x every day. And even if I wanted to write all day with a zeal of intense creativity, I just can't. My brain just switches off as thoughts become blurry and I begin to make obvious mistakes. I don't even know how this will even mesh in to the work place and that's very scary.
I started watching your videos on vacation, my first trip across europe in 25 days, from Spain to Greece on my own. I had to come to terms with the fact I couldn't just sit down and work for an hour if I was to travel far enough, see everything I wanted to. I had to acknowledge that my joy is it's own product, and that the benefits I get from a clear head once a day is enough to have used it effectively, on that journey. So this sentiment hits pretty hard for me.
Thank you for uploading this. Thank you for making my vacation on my own the best ever.
One of my favorite repetitive activities is relistening to John and Hanks videos where the branching circles of the prose always leads me to a better understanding of the world around me and more unintentionally, myself. Thank you for the circles John... All of them.
Repetitive artistic pursuits are my favorite grounding activity. I painted more bowls than I could count in college without ever having taken a throwing class-I would go by myself to the empty ceramics room in the evenings and whenever it was sunset, put on some music and keep painting until it was pitch black outside and until I felt less anxious. A very sweet professor who was planning on retiring within the next year created a charity drive to sell them at; each time I ran out of things to paint she would make me more. With classes being online right now, that’s one of the things that i miss the most. I know there has been lots of research attempting to prove that a purely digital environment can be just as engaging, but I can’t help but think that there’s something more. I’ve been working hard lately to find other things to ground myself, maybe I’ll try circles next. Thanks, John.
This is, quite literally, the only TH-cam video I've ever seen that I wasn't able (or tempted!) to look away from.
Also, I'm reminded of how Jenny Lawson uses drawing to cope with her mental illness, too, and am seriously considering incorporating something similar into my routine. I "can't draw" but I can certainly manage definitionally imperfect circles. Thanks, John :)
Jenny Lawson has drawn so many tiny circles in her coping art, too.
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whimsikate I'm with ya.. I also can not draw, but I can manage imperfect circles.. So my Thanks to John as well.. 😊
You'll never know if you don't go.
You’ll never shine if you don’t glow
@@hayley_24b hey now
@@contreras4al You're an all-star!
@@biffjerky4859 get your game on
@@patrickburell7139 go play
I think this is probably one of my favourite episodes of vlog brothers from John. I spend a lot of my time obsessing about being productive and time and while this might not remove my need to feel productive, it’s at the very least a very beautiful way to think about it and it’s nice to remind myself that productivity is often a very arbitrary thing.
I might also try the circle drawing. Looks good.
I have drawn an estimated 30-35k circles through the last 10 months or so. My circles are very different from yours (mine are much much more compact) but they were absolutely inspired by you. I love the repetition of it
I had a feeling I knew what the circles represented, then I went to the worldometer to confirm my theory. I appreciate how this video, without once stating what it is referring to can be so calming...and then suddenly so chilling.
I'm just sitting here thinking how great John's circle-drawing ASMR would be.
Art that hurts and encourages change. The most meaningful kind. I contextualize my value of what makes art "good art" by how it speaks to me. Knowing the story behind it can make art more meaningful, and therefore create a connection between me and the artist, like knowing that Van Gogh was depressed and overwhelmed by the world makes his choppy, swirling brushstrokes land like a scream: "I can't take this anymore" over and over.
Your circles hit me hard because I saw my loss of my grandfather (not covid related, but during quarantine) encompassed in one tiny circle, amidst the pain and loss of those other 589 lives lost, and it hurt, but in a way that also made me feel like I'm not alone. I could not go to my grandfather's funeral. The man was there for every event of my life: band concerts, graduations, choir performances, jazz band solos where I failed royally and he was still proud of me. And I couldn't be there. That stings in its irony most of all. I feel like the child I was, looking for him and the rest of my family out in the stands, but this time, I don't see him.
One lost life is enough. 170,00 is too much to bear.
It’s my first year of college. I’ve spent tonight sitting and crying and wanting to drop out of college because I don’t think I can do it. This brought me at least a few minutes of peace.
I think that John's circle art is beautiful! I could watch that for hours.
He should record all the process and publish it: "ASMR: drawing 170000 circles"
Such a calming video. Thank you, John 💙 Also, your self-care is productive * air hug *
This video really touched me because during the pandemic and some drastic life changes, I wasn't able to craft like I used to. I turned to origami instead because paper is much more portable than yarn. Inspired by the Japanese tradition of folding 1000 cranes to make a wish, I have been choosing an origami pattern that I can fold small enough so that 1000 fit in a single, usually large jar. I already had made 2000 cranes in two jars a few years ago, but the past few months I have made 1000 boats, 1000 frogs, 1000 hummingbirds, 1000 lilies, 1000 lotuses, 1000 doves, and 1000 butterflies. It takes weeks for each 1000 to be completed. The repetitive movements are calming and despite making 1000 of something, they're never quite the same, no matter how simple or complex. Thank you for the many ways you and Hank share with us.
Because of this video and a circle drawing live stream, I too began drawing circles which quickly evolved into learning how to draw mandalas and it has opened a very rewarding spiritual/art journey for me. Thank you for sharing your circles, John!
This is like a Thoughts from Places video except it's just one place.
The only place in which I'm currently able to think. -John
I love this. I love THIS. I LOVE THIS. I DON'T KNOW ANY OTHER WAY TO EXPRESS HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS VIDEO
The power of this was Amplified by only using the number and allowing your audience to make the association. Brilliant and impactful.
Drawing circles is super brilliant! I use my iPad and everyday, if I'm getting stressed, I draw and colour in intersecting a few circles and it's incredibly relaxing. It's like meditating with your hands for a few minutes.
I guess it really is circles all the way down, huh.
(epic reference)
Good timing for this video! I'll be a billion seconds old this Friday! :D
Happy billionth second, Tom! -John
watching this on a wednesday morning before a huge and very important english exam, and now im crying over those circles, but you helped to put everything into perspective and made me feel so much calmer. thanks so much john
This is one of the most empathetic things I've ever seen. Thank you for the value you are placing on each of the individual 170,000.
☺There's a lot of things that we don't consider "productive", but they ultimately are. Spending time with your family, watching the scenery, and doing your hobbies all contribute to destressing and maintaining your mental and physical health. I wouldn't consider them unproductive, but rather unintentionally productive.
Last time I was this early Hank still had his original haircut
I really love this. I also find simple repetitive tasks extremely calming and I have pretty bad anxiety so things like circle drawing might help. I want to try this but I know small circles will hurt my hand. in the past I've done things like peeling garlic (a personal fav small stress releif break, plus then I have peeled garlic at the end and my hands smell like garlic! yay!) and tedious fetch quests in video games (900 koroks in botw found, my god that took forever but felt so nice.) this would probably cancel out the purpose of the exercise for you but if you ever wanted to livestream you doing this with no sound or talking I would legit watch, so calming.
Hank's quote in ABFE about the fact that you'll never stop feeling unproductive until you realize your own joy is something you can produce, really changed the way I see my days. Even when I'm not "productive" in the widely understood sense, if I'm making myself happier, it's enough.
Okay I'm curious, why 170,000 rather than some other number?
It is the number of people who have died in the US from COVID-19 as of 8/16/2020.
@@movingforwardLDTH Ahh, okay that makes sense.
"Email is productive but Twitter isnt"
Thank Christ you said that John. My heart sang to hear you articulate that.
I know I am one of the more....ah....conservative folks that comments on Vlogbrothers videos but I just want you to know that despite that I am rooting for you guys as well.
It's so cool to see some of the conversations you and hank have in the podcast make their way into the videos. It shows how genuine those conversations you share with all of us are.
I feel like this piece of art won't be wasted time. This is the kind of thing that would make a beautiful art book, one that you would be bewildered by at first, and then you figure out the meaning and cry.
It's just sad to hear John say that he thinks a walk in the woods with his children is unproductive. Spending time in nature with your children is far more impactful than any video you could make.
But what does it produce?
@@NoActuallyGo-KCUF-Yourself Children who know their father. Who have wistful childhood memories to reproduce one day with their own kids, should they choose to have any. Who will one day base their relationships with everyone they meet in their life off of the expectations set in their childhood. Who will consume from, produce for, and change the world that you also live in.
I'd say a walk in the woods with your kids is a very important and productive thing to do.
My trypophobia made me have to only listen to this video and not watch it
Videos like these always feel so much longer than they are. When I find a good one, I replay it and try to see how much of a task I can get done in those 3 minutes and 55 seconds, because I know that John was able to say so much in so little time.
Hi John & Hank-- I watched your videos years ago, as a teenager, and fell out of it because I fell out of most of my interests during that time. Coming back as an adult, I find it so comforting that you're still creating these thoughtful videos and I love watching them with a whole new perspective. It feels like I can almost mark my growth against these videos in what I take away from them. So just wanted to say hi, and I'm happy to be back :)
That's so lovely to hear. Thanks for dropping back by. Hope you're well. -John
I see a torso with noodle arms pointing a gun at something that it's skiing towards. What do you see?
I saw Jacob Marley-style chains, but yes, definitely skiing torso
"I wanna produce joy" ABFE reference!
It was so interesting and also relaxing to watch how my conception of the picture changed with every few circles added. Completely different pictures every few seconds.
I feel like I could watch like an hour of John just drawing circles and talking. Very calming and meditative even to watch.
I feel like your circles have now become productive now that you used them to make a video.
So half a thousand circles every 4 minutes, you’ll be done in just under 23 hours if you go straight through. Well 22.67 hours...good luck John
+
I really like this take, that keeping track of the moments experienced by using a creative yardstick of your choice is a sort of backstreet for happiness and being your own ‘rockstar’.
Your videos have provided me with so many moments of calm and thoughtfulness for many years, but it has been especially appreciated in these last several months.
Forget millions and billions of seconds as measurements. What I took away from this is measuring time in terms of kings of France.
In this measurement today and 10 trillion seconds ago are identical.
I’m more of a front streets guy myself
Hi John, at a time of crisis in my life, this is soothing to listen to and watch. I still worry about you as well, and I hope you can find peace and sustainability in this time of adversity. Circle on!
I randomly took to drawing circles recently because I was in a lame duck period of my old job, but returning to this video a couple years later is rough...
The question is:
Does John get to 170,000 circles?
He has OCD. Of course he does.
To the 1% who is reading this comment.. stay blessed and I hope something amazing happens within your life very soon!
thank you, you too!!
Thank you! ❤
@@captocie No problem at all!
@@janedalek Thank you!
I'm an au pair and today being productive to me meant finger painting, going swimming and cooking with my kids and I love that! Productivity can also include walking in the woods, the science experiments we do or even playing video games together.
What I like about coming back to your channel over and over again is because I share your worries and your joys. I haven't found a friend who understands these things. But I found you guys. And maybe, in some way, *we* are friends. Even if that friendship isn't clearly bound within the popular definition of the word.
Notification squad where you at?!?!
Here, but also Australian.... so usually asleep 😂
Question: Do people with trypophobia feel unsettled seeing this?
They aren't holes, so this was fine for me. If, on the other hand, the video was putting lots of small circle holes into a lump of clay that would be triggering for me. But I can't speak to everyone's experience with trypophobia.
Yeah, it didn't bug me, but I wouldn't say that would hold true for everyone
Right, thanks for informing me!
This was such an amazing video. I've been pretty anxious about life lately, and what you said about producing things was the thing I needed to hear most right now. That is just my takeaway but thanks for reminding me to be awesome!
I have always been a fan of yours John. But this is something else. It’s your soul speaking out the social problems and pain and what matters to you with the help of metaphors, philosophy, concepts of art and story telling. A beautiful embedded message. Thanks a lot for teaching me these John. ❤️❤️❤️💝💝💝
first
I have been struggling a lot with my mental health for the past few months (this month in particular has been very hard and I have really been in such a dark place). I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your own struggles and means of attempting to find paths through what I call the 'smothering thoughts'
I'm on my second sheet of paper full of circles. It's great. I never thought I would enjoy something like this, but I also never thought a lot of things. Thanks for the tip, John.
I’ve been packing up my apartment and been in the process of moving this past week. It’s a major change in my life, I’m close to graduating college, but not quite, but pandemic and online classes and unemployment so I’m moving back in with my parents. It’s been pretty stressful, but these vlogbrothers videos, with honest conversations and little moments of life really bring a little brightness to my day. Thanks 💛