John Green, the New York Times best-selling author of “The Fault in Our Stars,” “Paper Towns,” “Looking for Alaska,” “An Abundance of Katherines,” and “Turtles All the Way Down,” is more than a novelist. He is also a podcaster who gives life advice in his “Dear Hank & John” podcast, as well as a YouTube star with his brother Hank in their YouTube channel “Vlogbrothers.” So, when he got into a conversation with 60 Minutes in lieu of World Mental Health Month this October, John’s thoughts about teenagers, how to deal with mental illness, and his perspective on writing, are notable insights coming from a “rare literary talent” of today.
With all of these platforms, John has not only managed to be successful in building a media empire but has also significantly built up a loyal young adult audience. His success springs from his “intuitive understanding of adolescents, his ability to meet them on their level and on their devices.” At 41 years old, John is able to connect with adolescents because of his own “youthful spirit— and a keen memory of his own socially awkward adolescence.”
John Green is still a kid at heart
When Jon Wertheim of 60 Minutes mentioned that Green wrote a lot about teenagers, John immediately agreed. He said that teenagers do a lot of things for the first time which has a certain intensity to it. “There’s an intensity to falling in love for the first time and also there’s an intensity to asking the big questions about life and meaning that just isn’t matched anywhere else.”
The subjects of John’s books deal with things like death, suicide, and cancer that teenagers may not have experienced yet but these experiences resonate with them. When John was asked why this was so, he said, “Maybe lots of teenagers haven’t had these particular experiences, but I do think they know of loss, of grief and pain.” Although the experience isn’t particularly universal, the feelings are.
John also said that teenagers don’t have the language to talk in a way that is compelling to adults. Because of this, teenagers get dismissed or are thought of as less intellectually curious or intellectually sophisticated than adults, which, to Green, is not true at all.
When John Green writes, he doesn’t envision a reader. John says that in some ways when he writes, he is writing back to his high school self to try to “communicate things to him,” or try to offer some comfort or consolation. When Wertheim asked John who was that guy he’d write to, he started talking about how difficult it was for him in high school.
John dealt with his own fears and mental illnesses when he was younger. He said that he was not a very good student back in high school. He had a lot of “self-destructive impulses” and would feel scared all the time. He was scared of everything. He struggled with a sense that he could not control his own thoughts.
It is these fears that he explored in “Turtles All the Way Down,” his recent book that became a best-seller for 50 weeks since its debut. The book centers on obsessive-compulsive disorder based on John’s own experience. So with this recent book, he obeyed the “time-honored rule of the craft” which is to write what you know. John said that he wanted to give people a glimpse of what the disorder really is.
When Wertheim asked if John remembered how he told his wife, Sarah, about his OCD, John said that it was not an event so much as it was a process. Sarah said that there wasn’t a moment where John directly said, “I have OCD.” She said it was more of a process where they were able to label what was happening. Sarah accepted the fact that his OCD was part of him.
In 2015, John decided to get off the anti-anxiety medication that he has been taking for so many years. When he was asked why, John said that it was because he “bought into this old romantic lie that in order to write well, you need to be free from all the mind-altering substances.” He acknowledged that the consequences were dire but he considers himself lucky that, although they were serious, they weren’t catastrophic. Because of this, John felt that he wanted to try to give some form or structure to the fear he had lived it most of his life.
John said that it is important for young people to be able to see successful, productive adults challenged by mental illness. Making himself as an example, he says that he has a serious chronic mental health problem but also has a rich and fulfilling life. The truth is, lots of people may have mental health problems, but can also still have good lives.
In commemoration of World Mental Health Day on October 10, the novelist gives encouragement saying that it is okay to be exactly who you are. He also said DFTBA: “Don’t forget to be awesome.” In other words, we ought to be “decreasing Worldsuck” and “increasing Awesome” – a vintage John Green right there.