John Green on living with OCD, his teenage goth phase, and his new book 'Everything Is Tuberculosis'

Wild Card with Rachel Martin

Wild Card with Rachel Martin

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John Green keeps busy –  from authoring young adult novels like "The Fault in Our Stars" to his latest nonfiction book, "Everything Is Tuberculosis" to running a YouTube empire with his brother Hank, his projects share one key goal: to make the world “suck less.” John talks to Rachel about how he battles despair and why he's unconcerned with the question of God's existence.

0:00 - Intro
1:29 - Parents taught him to love people
3:15 - Rachel on her teenage dislike of Michael Jackson
4:20 - On being a difficult kid
7:46 - On being obsessed with the end of humanity from a young age
11:15 - On his new book "Everything Is Tuberculosis"
12:15 - On the teen that inspired "Everything Is Tuberculosis"
15:00 - Why tuberculosis hasn’t been eradicated
16:46 - On OCD and spending a lot of time in his head
19:09 - On the challenge of writing “Turtles All The Way Down”
20: 21 - The upside to OCD
22: 46 - Relearning that there is cause for hope
26: 21 - On what being a religious person means to him
29:03 - We all deserve love
30:20 - On death being a huge deal for him
35:09 - How telling stories is magic
36:12 - Going back in time to being 17

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this video, Rachel Martin says tuberculosis is caused by a virus, but it is caused by bacteria.

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Part-interview, part-existential game show – this is Wild Card from NPR. Host Rachel Martin rips up the typical interview script and invites guests to play a game about life's biggest questions. Rachel takes actors, artists and thinkers on a choose-your-own-adventure conversation that lets them open up about their fears, their joys and how they've built meaning from experience – all with the help of a very special deck of cards. You can reach out to us at wildcard@npr.org. We love it when you do.

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