Hank and John Green talking about how the dead live on through language in Dear Hank and John Episode 402, at minute 38:00.
J: I know that, that you're not gonna like this, but there's a 120 billion people of whom about 112 billion are dead. There's like, what does that mean? Like about 22 dead people for each of us living people. And they, I think of it as, as them... I mean we inherited their world and on every level. Right? Even though the majority of them died before the age of 15 years old, they still contributed through their love and being loved to the world that we share now. Like they loved us up into the world. Like literally and figuratively and I think of them as like kind of trying to hold us together.
H: Yeah. You know how I think of them, John?. I think of them as all -
J: Femurs. As a bunch of femurs.
H: I thought you said beavers. No. and I was like, no, but that's awesome. Maybe I should
J: Yeah. Just building dams for us. Just holding back the water
H: I just wanna imagine all the dead people as beavers. Like the cutest beavers.
J: That that is a little weird. When I think of my grandma as a beaver, it's
H: 112 billion beavers. Yeah. Just playing in the stream of time
J: No, but how, how do you seriously them?
H: I think of them as all of the words.
J: Hmmm... All the words together.
H: I think of them, I think of the words and I think these words were not made by any person. Like the words that we use were not made like no word - no one word was made by any one person, though a couple were
J: Except for Shakespeare.
H: Shakespeare's got a bunch of to his name.
J: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But other than that,
H: But, but then we like, you know, we took those And we kept on messing around with them. Even Shakespeare words.
J: Yeah. Right.
H: And we will continue to, to mess around with them. And the thing that is communication and the, the tremendous number of words that we get in all of the different languages that, that then gets shared between languages is how we do the thing that is the most human thing, which is put ideas into each other's heads and put stories into each other's heads.
J: Mm.
H: And... and so without, and like there was a time when there weren't very many words and so we were less good at that. And now there it's just like more and more words. And those are...
J: There's both more words and there fewer words in the sense that there are fewer languages.
H: That so that's true. It's true. But like in my, in like in in my communication, I just think about like the ghost of all of the people and all of the things that I say.
J: Yeah. Yeah.
H: This is like, not like I didn't come up with these words.
J: No. They they brought the language to you and then you inherited it and did what you could with it and added your little bit. It's a little bit like the world's largest ball of paint. Right. Everybody gets to add their own layer and your layer affects the next layer. But it's not like your layer is by any means the last or most important layer.
H: Yeah. and I I extra like this because like words aren't a thing that exists. They're just like, breath.
J: Yeah.
J: Yeah. Anyway, that brings me to AFC Wimbledon News. America's favorite fourth tier English soccer team, which is made ultimately out of language just like the rest of us
H: and ideas.