The UIUC Talkshow
#65 - Eryn Van Wijk: Failure, Nihilism, Sean Carroll, Philosophy & Why Interesting People Change Your Life
Eryn Van Wijk is an astrophysics and philosophy student at the University of Illinois. Eryn is also a Stamps Scholar, an artist, a violinist, and now vice president of the Illinois Astronomical Society. But most importantly, Eryn is one of our dear friends. What makes this episode different is that this was the first time we ever met Eryn. In April 2024, we had an idea. YouTube probably knows an absurd amount about you from what you watch. So what if instead of using that information to recommend another video, you could use it to recommend a person? We made a post on r/UIUC called “Can You Make Friends Based on Your YouTube?” We asked people to send us whatever weird combination of channels, topics, and videos appeared on their Recommended page. Then we tried matching people whose feeds looked eerily similar. Eryn filled out the form on a whim. Eryn’s YouTube page matched remarkably well with Aaryaman’s. And instead of simply introducing the two, we thought: why not bring Eryn into another experiment we were running—the UIUC Talkshow? So we sat down and started talking. And kept talking. For nearly five hours. This became the longest episode of the UIUC Talkshow we had ever recorded, but what makes it special is not the length. You are basically watching a friendship begin in real time. At the beginning, we barely know each other. At one point people at the table are literally asking each other’s names. From there, the conversation wanders through astronomy, philosophy, online friendships, Oppenheimer, music, art, uncertainty, failure, nihilism, college, science, whether reality could be a simulation, whether absolute truth exists, and how to live when you have absolutely no idea what you are doing. Eryn came to Illinois undeclared, interested in both the universe and the questions underneath it: What is real? What can we actually know? What makes a life meaningful? Why do we believe the things we believe? But another question keeps appearing throughout the conversation: What are you waiting for? Eryn talks openly about being risk-averse, overthinking decisions, revising emails too many times, wanting certainty before acting, and being afraid of failure. Then, more than four hours into the conversation, Sean Carroll comes up. Eryn had listened to Carroll for years. Doing graduate work with Sean Carroll was described as something close to “the dream.” So we said: email Sean Carroll. The immediate reaction was that this sounded intimidating. But why? His email exists. You can write to him. The worst outcome is basically the situation you are already in: you don't talk to Sean Carroll. Eventually Eryn arrives at one of my favorite realizations from the entire conversation: “You make certain people seem more inaccessible in your head than they actually are. Like people are just people.” We told Eryn to send the email that night. Eryn did. And not long afterward, Eryn actually had a conversation with Sean Carroll. Suddenly Sean Carroll was no longer just “Sean Carroll, famous physicist on the internet.” There had been an actual conversation. The imaginary wall had gotten a little smaller. That idea ended up extending far beyond Sean Carroll. Since this recording, there have been many more conversations. Eryn became a regular at our Coldplay nights, played violin during them, met more of our friends, and eventually even went skydiving together, something we first talked about barely five minutes into this conversation. The UIUC Talkshow usually records conversations with people after we already know why we find them interesting. This one accidentally recorded the moment we found a friend. A Reddit post led to a Google Form. A Google Form led to a YouTube match. A YouTube match led to a five-hour conversation. And the conversation led to everything that came afterward. Sometimes that is just how friendships start.
