464: Becoming a Meditation Podcast

Dear Hank & John

In this episode of Dear Hank & John, the brothers dive into a mix of quirky questions and personal reflections, transitioning into an unexpe

Key takeaways

• The podcast unexpectedly evolves into a guided meditation, emphasizing mindfulness and offline human connection.

Main topics

• Book signing logistics and production
• Digital communication evolution

Notable quotes

Your fears are real. Thank you for coming to my meditation.

Conclusion

The episode ends with a blend of humor, heartfelt reflection, and grat

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) You're listening to a Complexly podcast. Hello, and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions, give you dubious advice, and bring you all the week's news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. John, Catherine and I have been doing a lot of karaoke, and she said, Hank, okay, tonight we're going to do this, but you can't do Wonderwall again. And I said, maybe. Speaker 1 (0:33) And I said, maybe. Speaker 2 (0:35) Yeah, I got it. That's good. That wasn't terrible. That wasn't terrible. It's funny because when we started Speaker 1 (0:40) - You did a rapid exhalation from your nose. I was surprised. Speaker 2 (0:43) Yeah, yeah. That's about as good as you're going to get from me most days. How's it going, Hank? Speaker 1 (0:48) It's good. Were you going to say something? About when we started? Because when you arrived in the room, I was trying to see if I could do the joke by saying, and I said, maybe, but you arrived right as I was doing that and I chickened out. You didn't have the courage Speaker 2 (1:08) to go full songster. Speaker 1 (1:09) No, yeah. Even when you were, just you were in the room. Yeah, I get it. I get Speaker 2 (1:14) it. Although, ironically, you're willing to do things in front of 250,000 strangers that you're not willing to do in front of a friend of yours, which is Speaker 1 (1:23) - Speaker 2 (1:23) That's totally true. Speaker 1 (1:24) Yeah. Speaker 2 (1:25) Interesting. I would say it's an interesting development in human history and a very new one. We're learning about ourselves as individuals, as a species. I mean, until like 130 years ago. There was functionally no way for a human voice to be heard further from hearing distance. Speaker 1 (1:51) Yeah. Speaker 2 (1:52) And here we are inside your ears. A Speaker 1 (1:55) real crazy thing to be like, to be like, what if the, what if the musicians could come out of the box instead of being human beings? I don't know, man. I worry a little bit about, um, Hank's about to come down. Anti-recorded music. Speaker 2 (2:12) He's a proper Luddite now. He's coming anti-recorded music for you. We're Speaker 1 (2:16) going Speaker 2 (2:16) all the way back. Speaker 1 (2:18) I don't know if I'm good with zippers, John. I think we may be. That was our downfall. Speaker 2 (2:25) Was Speaker 1 (2:25) the Speaker 2 (2:25) zipper. Oh, Speaker 1 (2:27) boy. It hadn't Speaker 2 (2:28) been Speaker 1 (2:29) for the zipper. I just want to make sure that we keep being people with each other. That's Speaker 2 (2:34) all. Yeah. I completely agree. I think we're going to have to get offline to do that. The great irony of the next 20 years is that it will be this offline-ification, I think, of discourse because there will be no way to have discourse online except with bots. With bots. Speaker 1 (2:55) Yeah. I'm learning so much about myself, John. And to the extent that my interior is replicated inside of other people, I do think that we need to get to take steps. Speaker 1 (3:11) Take steps in which direction, Hank? Offline, John. In the Speaker 2 (3:14) offline direction. I couldn't agree more. I'm looking at a ginkgo tree right now. I'm talking to my brother. I've got a good life. And I hope that y'all are doing okay wherever you're listening to this. I hope your back doesn't hurt like my back hurts. I hope you don't have any pain in your body right now. In fact, this is now becoming a meditation podcast. And the first thing I want you to do is Speaker 1 (3:35) take one deep Speaker 2 (3:36) breath in. Speaker 1 (3:37) Okay. Speaker 2 (3:38) Through the nose. And then out through the mouth. Speaker 1 (3:45) Doesn't that feel a little bit better? It does. Speaker 2 (3:48) Now, I want you to picture a tree. Unless, like me, you have aphantasia, in which case, fortunately, you're staring out the window at a tree. Speaker 1 (3:56) Okay, I'm picturing a tree. All right, what color are its leaves? They're green. It's not fall? No, I could do different, though. Speaker 2 (4:05) Can you make it autumn for me? Speaker 1 (4:07) Sure, yeah, there Speaker 2 (4:08) it is. Can you have the wind Speaker 1 (4:09) whispering Speaker 2 (4:11) through the trees? Speaker 1 (4:13) Uh-huh. Speaker 2 (4:17) There's more than one tree? Now there's more Speaker 1 (4:22) than one tree? I mean, do you know how many trees do you- There's a whole Speaker 2 (4:24) forest of trees and they are your fears. They are your fears. Oh my God, they're alive. Speaker 1 (4:29) That's why they're red and yellow. Speaker 2 (4:32) All right, let's move on. Let's answer some questions from our listeners. I Speaker 1 (4:36) love our meditation podcast where at any moment it could turn on you. This is an amazing idea. Speaker 2 (4:44) Your fears are real. Thank you for coming to my meditation. Speaker 1 (4:48) Oh, God. I had this idea for a Hanks Channel video that's just 10 hours of silence, but at random points I tell you a fact. Speaker 2 (4:58) Yeah, I hate that idea. Speaker 2 (5:01) People would figure it out pretty quickly, I think. Speaker 1 (5:04) What Speaker 2 (5:05) do you mean they'd Speaker 1 (5:05) figure it out? Speaker 2 (5:06) They'd look at where the little peaks are in the video watch. Speaker 1 (5:09) No, but like that's the thing. You just let it play. There's this video. There's a similar thing. I don't know if you know about it, but it's just like 10 hours of silence interrupted by Pikmin noises. What's Pikmin? Pikmin are a cartoon video game character. Okay. That grow in the ground and then become mobile on an alien planet. that a man goes to and needs to repair his spaceship. And they make Speaker 2 (5:33) a Speaker 1 (5:33) cute little noise. They go, meh, meh. Speaker 2 (5:35) And Speaker 1 (5:35) so there's just like silence and then the Pikmin show up and we play it in the house and it's hilarious. It's just very funny. All right. I mean, I'm Speaker 2 (5:45) going to have to say that that might be one of those you had to be there kind of thing. Maybe, maybe. All right. Let's answer some questions from our listeners, beginning with this one from Sarah, who writes, Dear John and Hank, but especially John, I saw you were signing 21,000 copies in a warehouse of your new book, Hollywood Ending, out September 22nd. Also, you're going on tour tickets available at hollywoodendingbook.com. I was wondering what the difference was between those finished books and the 85,000 tip-in sheets you signed in the vlog with his live streams. Are these books going somewhere different than the tip-in pages, pumpkins, and publishing, Sarah? So Sarah, basically what it turns out is that we made a certain commitment to bookstores that we were going to get them X number of copies of the book. Speaker 1 (6:21) Oh my God. So you had to sign more than you thought you were going to have to sign. Speaker 2 (6:25) Yeah, because I also have to sign all the books for the tour, many of which I'll sign the day of the tour, but some of which, because of scheduling reasons, couldn't be signed the day of the tour, so it had to be signed in advance. If you think about the 105,000 copies that are going out into the world that are signed, like 25,000 or 30,000 of them are for the tour. Hopefully 35,000 or 40,000 are for people who pre-ordered at hollywoodendingbook.com. And then there has to be a certain number left over for the bookstores to have that they can put out on shelves. Speaker 1 (7:02) So Speaker 2 (7:02) the only way that we could reach that number because we ran out of time basically. was for me to go to the warehouse in Crawfordsville, Indiana and sign my name over and over again. But I have to say- Sign actual books. Sign actual finished books. I have to say I had an awesome time. And one of the people who flew in from Maryland because they have a deep understanding of how these signings have to work to sign 7,000 books in a day- Speaker 1 (7:23) They're like a consultant. Was named Megan. Speaker 2 (7:25) And she's a huge Dear Hank and John listener. Oh, hello, Megan. Yeah, hey, Megan, how's it going? So it was a really cool experience. I got to see where books are birthed. I also got to see where they go to die. Speaker 1 (7:37) Yeah. You showed us that. The Speaker 2 (7:40) pulping room where there's a little machine and your book goes on a conveyor belt and it either gets shook one way, in which case it goes back into the warehouse storage or it gets shook. Speaker 1 (7:52) What's the machine that decides this? So you scan the barcode as you put the book on the little conveyor belt and then it gets on the conveyor belt and by scanning the barcode. Speaker 2 (8:05) The machine has an algorithm that has determined whether or not your book goes back into warehousing because it costs a certain amount to store a book or if it's cheaper and better to just recycle it, in which case it gets shooked over to that section. And the first time I toured the warehouse back in like 2015, they were showing me this process and they were like, of course, your books never get shooked over to be destroyed. And I was like, oh, thank goodness. Yeah, I mean, I am pretty successful right now. The Fault in Our Stars is still a number one New York Times bestseller, et cetera. And then I watched as a copy of Paper Towns got shucked right into the machine that kills it. Speaker 1 (8:44) They're like, see here, boop. Oh, action. Oh, it turns out Paper Towns, people don't really want that one. And then you go into the room and there's literally like a machine that rips Speaker 2 (8:55) apart the books and eats them and then spits out, like literally sort of poops out a cube. And as the cube gets pooped Speaker 1 (9:03) out, Speaker 2 (9:03) people put it into a... People with forklifts and everything put it into a certain section of the book recycling area and then all that gets recycled and you know what it gets turned into? Speaker 1 (9:15) Toilet paper. Speaker 2 (9:16) Toilet paper! Speaker 1 (9:18) Yeah. Speaker 2 (9:19) Which is great. Literal toilet paper. We don't need to cut down those old- It's great. No, it's wonderful. I'm so happy. I would Speaker 1 (9:23) buy, for a good store, I would buy book toilet- Speaker 2 (9:27) Actually, I wouldn't. Speaker 1 (9:28) Now that I've heard it come out of my mouth, people don't- That doesn't actually Speaker 2 (9:31) sound nice. I don't think people want it. I Speaker 1 (9:33) don't want to know where the toilet paper comes from. I want to know that it doesn't come from trees. Aside from that, I don't actually want to say- You don't want Speaker 2 (9:40) the details. Everybody, Speaker 1 (9:40) it's so environmentally Speaker 2 (9:41) friendly. Yeah, exactly. It's from Speaker 1 (9:43) destroyed literature. Speaker 2 (9:45) This one has the new John Green book Speaker 1 (9:47) in it. Speaker 2 (9:50) Occasionally, I'll have someone email me or post a review or whatever in which they're very angry, and they say, I wouldn't wipe my butt with your Speaker 1 (10:00) book. Really? Speaker 2 (10:01) But they have. Speaker 1 (10:03) Maybe. They have, Hank. Somebody who said that has. Speaker 2 (10:10) Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I probably have. Speaker 2 (10:14) Hilarious. Anyway, so that's the deal with Hollywood Ending. It comes out on September 22nd. If you're in Portland, Maine, Tucson, Arizona, if you're in New York City, if you're in Birmingham, Alabama, there are still tickets left for the tour. You can get them at hollywoodendingbook.com. I'm so excited to go on tour. You know who I'm going to have as my special guest in Birmingham, Hank? Speaker 1 (10:33) Sarah, you're a screen. Speaker 2 (10:34) I know everything. How do you know all this stuff? Who do I have in Maine? Man, you don't know that one. I don't know that one. Lily King, author of Heart the Lover. I'm so excited to meet her. Also got you in San Diego, but that one's almost sold out, Speaker 1 (10:47) so no need to talk about it. Good. Good work. Good work, us. John, do you want to answer some questions from our – oh, we already started. We already started. We already did one. I got to do another one. It's from Elliot who asks, Dear Hank and John, I took a trip to the moon and Mars on a rocket ship and I drove my moon buggy on both. Yep. What are the other things in the solar system that I could drive my moon buggy on? What about in the Milky Way? I know that I can't write it on gassy planets. Also, how fast can the moon buggy go on Mars? Future news from Mars correspondent Elliot Almost Four. Okay, so Speaker 2 (11:20) here's my guess, Hank. There comes a certain size. So there's a lot of stars in the Milky Way, Elliot, like hundreds of billions. And so there are probably, there are a lot of planets orbiting those stars and some of them are rocky and some of them are gaseous and et cetera. But like, I think there's a Goldilocks zone for your moon buggy. where it's not too – the planet can't be too small and Speaker 1 (11:41) the planet also can't be too big. And the planet has to be relatively solid. Yeah. Those are your big concerns. If you're going to moon buggy, you're going to want to not sink into the surface because then you're inside the planet and that's not where you want to be, Elliot. And then number two, you don't want to – really, honestly, you don't want it to be too heavy because then your moon buggy might break. But if it's Speaker 2 (12:04) too light, what if your moon buggy hits a bump and then shoots off into space? Speaker 1 (12:09) Yeah. This is a concern if it's very, very small. But you don't even have to leave the solar system to get a bunch of good candidates. Like, obviously, you don't want to go to – I mean, you can if you want to go to Venus and drive your moon buggy on the surface. It's just going to be very hot. Could you? Speaker 2 (12:23) What? If you had, like, a heat shield. Imagine Elliot's moon buggy has a heat shield, which I'm sure he does. I feel like Speaker 1 (12:29) Elliot's