John Green on Taking a Break from the Internet

John Green posted this video message (embedded below) to his brother Hank on their vlogbrothers channel talking about his battle with depression and how he's decided to take a break from the internet for July, 2024 to see if that helps.

As someone who deals with depression and the huge blocker it can put in front of any sort of creative work, I really respect John's honesty, vulnerability, as well his message of hope even while he sits at the bottom of a dark well:

One last message before I take that break. As you can probably tell, I am currently a bit demented by despair, but in that respect, I know that I am not alone. Every worthwhile thing I try to convince myself I've done, depression counters with "Actually the world would be better if you hadn't done that." Depression, which produces so little, is astonishingly effective at outthinking me. It convinces me that I'm worthless and that my work is worse than worthless. And I am speaking to you now from the bottom of the well. But even so, I wanna say as a goodbye for now: Despair is a lie. Hopelessness is a lie. No simple story can ever be true, and there is no simpler story than nothing means anything. You not being loved or worthy of love, is a lie. Your passion and work and enthusiasm and spark of conscious not mattering. Is a lie. But even in telling you this, I'm struggling to tell it to myself, and that's the main thing I'll be working on in July. I'll be working on telling myself what I've been telling you this whole time, which is that hope sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.

Despair is a lie. Hopelessness is a lie.

It's a good reminder to all of us (Me!) that even with creative and commercial success, depression still finds a way to weasel it's way in and suck the joy out of things.

John has, to put it mildly, had a lot of success in what anyone who puts themselves online would think of as success:

• Written and published 8 books, many of which have been made into tv series or full movies—The Fault in Our Stars being possibly the most well known, and Turtles All the Way Down being the most recent.
• A popular YouTube channel with his brother, vlogbrothers that dates back to the start of YouTube. They also started VidCon together.
• A couple of popular podcast, The Anthropocene Reviewed, where John reviews different facets of the human-centered planet, and Dear Hank & John, where John and Hank Green offer advice about life’s big and small questions.
• 4 million followers on Twitter, 2.8 million on TikTok.
• etc. etc.

I don't list all those things to pump John's tires up—though if you somehow read this John, know that despite the lies depression is trying to tell you, the truth is your work does matter immensely and inspires me as a 40-something year old husband, father, and creative person living in Saskatchewan, Canada—but more to remind myself to stop telling myself the lie that I just need that one more thing to will fix me.

Despair is a lie. Hopelessness is a lie.

Depression doesn't control me. It lies to me. It tries to tear down all that's good. It tag teams with anxiety to try to tie up my legs and make me fall.

Right now as I'm writing this, I'm in a good space. I have anxious thoughts about finances, upcoming trips, and our family changing as our kids get older. But it's manageable today.

And that's enough for today.