Hello!
You’ve probably heard the bowl story, or some version of it, but I’m going to tell it to you again. Some diabolical teacher split his ceramics students into two groups. One group was told to spend the entire semester making one perfect bowl. The other group was graded on sheer volume… just make as many bowls as you can, quality be damned.
At the end of the semester, the group that was told to just make a bunch of bowls made the better bowls.
As you may have noticed, I’m more of a “make a ton of bowls” guy than I am a “make a perfect bowl” guy. Of course, there are times when I start getting obsessed with making a perfect bowl. Books are like this. You spend so much time on a book, and you’re asking people to pour a lot of energy (and money) into them (at least, a lot more than a YouTube video) that it’s pretty much impossible not to get a little obsessed with them. But I don’t think I’d be all that good at writing books if I hadn’t spent 15 years writing hundreds of 700-word essays for Vlogbrothers. I mean, if you look too closely, you might notice that a lot of my writing looks a bit like a bunch of video scripts strung together into a longer story!
But there are some things hidden in the bowl story. The biggest one is that making 1000 bad bowls is actually way more expensive than making 1 very good one. All that clay and glaze and kiln time…it’s hard! Perhaps some of them you can just make from the same clay over and over again, but sometimes the learning costs.
The question is, what does it cost? Because sometimes it costs resources that are not infinite, like the amount of space in a kiln. But sometimes the thing that stops people is resources that they could, if they wanted, discard. The biggest one of those being your own ego… the madness that keeps you from making something that kinda sucks, even though everyone sucks when they get started. This is especially hard when the art requires interaction with audiences (stand-up is a brutal example of this). Doing comedy only costs time, but bombing feels like an impossible cost to pay. But it can hurt to make something bad even when no one is around to see it!
Many forms of creation now cost nothing but time. That’s a pretty positive outcome, and it is something to take a hard look at. The value of creating is all along the process, and I think we all should be doing it in one way or another. The path to good runs through bad, and that goes for art forms we don’t even consider art forms, like friendship, parenthood, and citizenship. But the only thing that gets us better is practice.
In the newest episode of my podcast Humans, NYT Connections Editor Wyna Liu summed up this idea very succinctly: No effort is wasted.
Hank
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This Week in Stuff
Why do humans swing our arms when we walk? (Instagram)
Livermore, CA, celebrated the 125th anniversary of its record-breaking light bulb. (independentnews.com)
To help end LGBTQ+ youth homelessness, Wisconsin is planting flowers in sidewalk cracks. (goodgoodgood.co)
Rabbit Hole traced the origins of the famous lorem ipsum dummy text. (YouTube)
WheezyWaiter gave some practical tips to help us worry a little less. (YouTube)
Please send us stuff you think we should feature to [email protected]
What is the largest source of electricity in each country?
Hannah Ritchie
Coal generates one-third of the world’s electricity, more than any other source.
But zoom into the country level, and the picture is much more varied. The map shows which source generated the most power in each country in 2024 or 2025 (the latest year available).
Thanks to large reserves, coal dominates across Asia. It’s the largest source in China, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia. These are huge power producers, which is why coal is so dominant at a global level.
Across most other regions, it’s mostly a mix of gas and hydropower. On islands and parts of North Africa, it’s oil.
Europe has the most diverse mix, with nuclear power dominating generation in countries such as France and Finland, and solar and wind overtaking fossil fuels as the largest sources in countries such as Spain and Germany.
Solar and wind are growing quickly in many countries; when these sources are combined as “variable renewables”, they become the largest source in six more countries: the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Pakistan.
Our World in Data is a UK-based non-profit organization that publishes research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems. You can find more of their data insights here. Want to receive even more Data Insights like this from Our World in Data directly in your inbox every few days? Sign up for their newsletter!
This Week at Complexly
For decades, the Giant Impact Hypothesis has been the leading theory for the Moon's formation. But there are a lot of weird Moon things that it still can't explain. A recent theory involving /three/ impacts might shed new light on our peculiar and precious Moon.
Even though we once knew them pretty well, firsthand knowledge of giant sloths is now lost to time – including some of the most basic aspects of their biology and behavior.
So, what did ancient people once know about these bizarre megafauna that we’ve since forgotten?
Some Games to Play!
Battleships (by Luke Rissacher)
Spellcheck (by Answer in Progress)
This Gubbins postcard was made by Jaime. Send yours to [email protected]
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Last week, we asked for stories of shared being with strangers that left an impact on you. Thank you to everyone who sent us a wholesome moment!
I was once waiting in the lobby of the YMCA for a swim meet to end so that I could go home, and an older man sat down at a table adjacent to my own. I’m not sure how, but we ended up talking about our mutual love of birds. I was weirded out at first, but quickly came to realize that this man, who apparently frequented the YMCA quite a lot, knew his shit. We talked about crows, about how he imitates songbirds and chats with them for hours on end, about his encounter with a nervous eagle and its seagull friend. Once it was time to leave, I wanted nothing more than to stay and listen to him tell his stories. I think that stranger encounter was one of the things that has heavily contributed to my love of the natural world—And my love of strangers. Thank you, mystery man.
A moment of shared impact is when I was reading the newsletter tonight I’m at my newly opened local ice cream shop listening to the high schoolers who created the mural sing their original songs. It’s very human connecting!!!
I am lucky enough to live in Brisbane, Australia, the home of Pub Choir. You may have seen them recently on America’s Got Talent, but they started here in little old Brisbane. Every month or so I go to a venue with a dear friend, grab a drink and learn to sing a song in 3 part harmony. Singing with strangers is a religious experience for me, and doing it in such a fun, accessible and regular way over the last 6+ years has been life changing. Shout out to Astrid who created and leads it. If you haven’t heard of Pub Choir, look it up on YouTube, you will not regret it!
I went on a roadtrip with my mom from Sacramento, CA to Indianapolis, IN to see the Total Solar Eclipse on my birthday, April 8, 2024, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with 50,000 people with a shared collective attention on the sky. I made a birthday wish on the biggest trick candle in the solar system at the moment of totality. And my wish came true during totality. I wished for a decrease in world suck. And in that moment, from where I was sitting, the world did not suck. As we all collectively turned our attention to the sky, the moment of shared being with 50,000 strangers was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before, or since. Turning 36 was pretty special. I give it 5 stars.
This weekend in Minneapolis we celebrated the 5th annual Pencil Sharpening! Thousands of my neighbors and people from far afield came to stand in the sun and watch the ceremony including marching band, singers, and dancers in pencil costumes (who this year made it onto the roof!). It's a silly and joyful time to gather, something we all really need and that the twin cities has ample opportunities for. This keeps us strong and connected for the less fun times.
The shared space that still gives me hope is a funeral. It such a hallowed event that still brings out empathy and compassion during such a divided time in the world. Lost friends and unexpected people making time to attend calling hours, people letting the elderly skip to the front of an hour-long receiving line, drivers giving right of way to a procession, landscapers turning off mowers at the cemetery. A society respecting the final moment in a fellow human’s life and surrounding their loved ones with sympathy.
I regularly think back on the best Uber ride of my life. As I got in the car, an episode of Radio Lab was just beginning. The driver offered to change to music, but I said no need. We listened together and laughed at all the same parts! The episode was just ending as he dropped me off at the airport, and even though we barely spoke, I left feeling like we were friends.
My moment of shared being took place in about 2016 or 2017. I was having a terrible no good day and took myself out for a walk to help get my mind off things. I ended up at the dog park where one of the dog owners started chatting to me. She asked me which dog was mine and I said, no, I'm just here because I'm so incredibly sad, I wanted to pat some dogs, and she went oh, I see, and proceeded to introduce me to every dog she could, starting with her own. It was very sweet and very helpful.
I’m very shy and generally avoid strangers in public settings, so I don’t have one moment that sticks out to me. But being a new mom, I’ve been overwhelmed by the joy of sharing little moments with strangers who want to coo at my (extremely adorable) baby, and I especially love the shared, knowing looks with other new moms. I’ve never felt a kinship to strangers in public before and it’s been a wonderful part of new parent life.
When I watched Spider-Man No Way Home in the cinema and Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield came on screen the whole audience gasped and cheered. Such a genuine moment of shared excitement and love. I still think about it fondly.
Have you ever tried something new and ended up really loving it? Tell us what doing that thing taught you!
Send your unwasted effort to [email protected].
