My notes on John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed
On humans and lemmings:
“Trial thought experiment (The word trial is used here because I have 100% certainty that nobody on Earth has ever seen this account.): I’m going to highlight this phrase(call me french, i darest thou) that so evidently corroborates our opinion of humanity. Nobody that sees this, or the quote causing it, will get triggered (to those living in the world of parentheses and semantics i say, shut up.), because we are so convinced that humanity is horrific and irredeemable. To you, I say, shut up (as well). Humanity is redeemable. Go redeem it. Heck, that could be our new slogan. Redeem us, or go extinct
rant over
[exit, exeunt]”
On Clarence Saunders, the inventor of the supermarket:
“This is perhaps my favorite chapter in the book thus far. It follows the winding tale of a man who came a century early. Among the likes of Jeffrey Bezos and Elon Musk, this man’s story would have truly thrived. A worthy inclusion indeed, Mr. Green.”
On Cable News, Yellow Journalism, and how news is about people:
“I now begin to wonder, did Green himself, or a publisher order these in a way that keeps the most entertaining for last? If this order is based entirely on chronology, and the progressive increase of Green’s skill with this format, I’d be quite impressed. Now, note that the deciding factor here may be completely unrelated, with my present physical setting influencing all. I’ll never be a respectable scientist, for controlled circumstances bore me to hell. Stuff is happening in the world, you idiots. Document that, not the isotropes.”
On Green’s Relationship with a publisher, and the humility of pain and truth:
“A true display of humility, this one. A few days back, I found myself at a loss. In a school course, I’d forgotten to do the necessary work of reflecting on a personal success and a personal failure of my experience with the course. At a loss in front of my teacher, I decided to do exactly what had given me a failing grade in the months before. I improvised. Improvisation, one tends to find, cannot be replicated in a test tube (or an isotrope, for the sake of consistency). On this day, however, fortune seemed to favor me, and I spoke of the humbling experience that was Advanced Placement® Human Geography. I didn’t speak as the aggrieved, conceited youth who was too concerned with a recent breakup I had been when I started the course, but instead as a humbled individual with a worldview that was, if anything, less narcissistic than before. Awareness of my accursed attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder stayed at the front of my mind as I spoke, but a mixture of caution and confidence kept my words on the closer bank of sanity. This is not to say I’ve lost confidence in the fact that I am the most singularly perfect individual on earth, and that all that I make should be the envy of those who see it, but instead a reassurance that I must make it so. I wonder how Mr Green and Mr Daniel Arthur Noyes, my everyday-visionary teacher would interact, but alas, AP® Human Geography has told me not to play around so much with hypotheticals, lest I become like Johann Heinrich von Thünen, too obsessed with isotropes and fictitious realities. What a chapter indeed, Mr. Green.”
On OCD, Signatures, and Sharpie. I hate Sharpie.:
“The beginning of this chapter was somewhat difficult for me. Having myself a signed copy of one of Mr. Green’s works, I’m aware of the fact that he signs his works in Sharpie®. Having myself at least one mental disorder that severely alters my perception of the world, I find the heartless scrape of Sharpie® unbearable. Seeing or hearing about Sharpie® takes me to a place in which I don’t enjoy seeing myself.
rant over [exit, exeunt]”
On storms, farming, and the meaning of being stuck indoors:
“I’ve had an interesting Monday. Acknowledging Mr. Green opining that making meaning is inevitable is both a weight off and a burden added. As I see it, giving meaning to your pain justifies the pain itself. However, this is paradoxical. Without meaning, one can succumb to the cold, natural reality that life is horrible, and lose faith in the point of life. All this is to say that, while I may just be a cog in the human amalgam, I have wants and needs that are mine own. I want my pain to mean something not to me, but to someone else. I want someone to see significance in the bottomless pit of my ache, and tell me, after seeing it, with unflagging determination, that my pain, and my being, are theirs as much as mine. Unfortunately, this isn’t easy work. As a result of my complex and divergent mental structure, most do not see the reason behind the rhyme that is my mind. Some of those who do end up grappling with the mental and logistical nightmare that is my ever-heating heart before even seeing my complexity as lovable. Others still are held back by what I like to call my affliction of Hominus Minimus , my ability to be the bare minimum to appeal to any intellectual on any front, just enough to sustain a single conversation. Debilitated as any day, I trudge on, and hope someone takes notice of the dimming stars in my eyes and feels the divine, not pity.”
On Icelandic Hot Dogs:
“Oh, Eleanor. What has become of you?” - In response to “ICELAND HAS MANY NATURAL WONDERS AS YOU CAN SEE THIS WATERFALL IS VERY HISTORIC.”
After a long rant about Mondays, Mr. Green has reassured me that some lives do, sometimes have good meaning.
On the iOS Notes App, and Using the Margins:
“Pertinent. Perhaps I’ll go back through these annotations and confessions in the decades to come and piece together the context myself. Perhaps then, I’ll be found, or maybe then, nihilism will take me. Only the future knows the future.”
On the QWERTY Keyboard:
“HEY!”, in response to - “In both cases, Edison worked with collaborators to build upon existing inventions,”
The QWERTY keyboard was a central part of my childhood, too. I think that its flaws are pretty minimal, though I’m yet to see a one handed or mobile version I like.
On Highway Attractions, The Interstate System, and American Cynicism:
“An Abundance of Katherines is, in my opinion, one of the greatest books ever written. Evidently, one of its biggest influences is this period of Mr. Green’s life, and this chapter goes on to touch on Colin Singleton’s biggest struggle in life. Colin didn’t understand that genius was not the fruit of singularity, and that played a huge part in how his life went. Eventually, with a winning smile, the boy, with naivety succeeded, and at the final moment, I cried. However, unlike the lyricist(s) of Belle and Sebastian, I nearly never cry at endings, leaving this book closer to me than most, if not all. Colin and myself share many traits, and once, I found a fair lady who told me she’d be my Lindsey Lee Wells. That, as anyone can guess, didn’t work out in my favor, and it leaves me wondering what happened to Lindsey and Colin after Mr. Green removed us from their lives.”
On Sycamore Trees:
“now wait just one minute.” In response to - “I reveled in nihilism.”