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We sat there together eating lunch, grinning like idiots watching a grown man on YouTube trying to check into “pet friendly” hotels with actual farm animals. Ridiculous.
When you’ve as busy a brain as mine, sometimes drastic measures are necessary to allow it the time and space to shut up for a few minutes.
My silly mind never stops racing, it’s always writing without my permission, always crafting lyrics, poems, essay topics, and often even single lines just repeat over and over again until I am able to get them down on paper. Get them out of my head.
Because of this, twice a day, something is needed to shut my brain off and allow it the space to not do what it naturally wants to do. One of these times is the 45 or so minutes before Sarah and I shower and go to bed, and we watch an episode of some show, or 45 minutes of a movie. Watching something allows my brain to not create itself, and so it feels like a balm. The other time, is after our workout whilst we’re eating lunch, and I feel zero shame saying that we like to watch random YouTube videos of random people we’ve found over the years that make or do cool things. It just works to calm things down.
I noticed a trend the other day, a common thread woven throughout all the people we’ve ended up watching, all the videos that we watch during lunch that calm my brain for a few minutes:
They are all weirdos, they are all absolutely ridiculous, and they are completely open to just allowing themselves to be silly, to be completely open to making other people let their guards down a bit and just embrace what it is to be human.
I have spoken at great length on this Signal Fire about our drastic and vital need to collectively stop taking ourselves so damn seriously, and honestly I believe it more now than ever. There’s this epidemic, this disease of over-seriousness, of professionalism, and when it’s combined with the shared trauma of the last few years, everyone has gotten so much tighter, so much more insecure, so much more afraid…of everything.
Watching these random goofballs do random hijinks with random people they’ve never met, live on camera, you’re certainly afforded the ability to witness many people following the exact description I just outlined above. But, but, but—that’s 3 buts!—you also get to see something miraculous happen:
Some people, some beautiful and brave souls, let their guards down, they open up, and they just embrace something completely out of the ordinary.
Magic happens then. In one video, an artist named Marko who paints custom art, customizes shoes, and asks perfect strangers in everywhere from Compton, to Australia, if he can paint a wall in their home, asks millionaires in California if he can do precisely that. The vast majority tell him to piss off in various tones of irritation, but a few say yes, and one of them absolutely blew my mind.
The man he asked ended up being a Chinese multi-multi-millionaire and had something to do with the invention of COVID rapid tests, and not only did he fully embrace Marko creating custom art for him, at the end, he gave him 1% share of his entire company as a thank you for being so generous with his art, his time, and his spirit.
Turns out, the man he asked was Aiiso Yufeng Li, a philanthropist and nanoengineer who has also donated millions of dollars to universities for research.
Sarah laughs at me when we travel, especially in places like the United Kingdom, as when we’re out walking somewhere I always say Hello and greet the people walking the other direction past us. I always do, and they always react with a bit of surprise. Some ignore me, some light up and greet me in return. Sometimes, we end up striking up conversations with complete strangers and make new friends in the process. We learn. We connect. Pieces of us that have probably been dormant far too long, begin to wake up.
Watching these people on YouTube, everyone from Marko to Max Fosh to Zac Alsop, they all are strange little agents of chaos, but in a way they’re doing something I think is really, really important.
They are waltzing around in backpacks, giving people permission to feel something new again. They are reminding me, and anyone who watches or happens to be in one of the videos, that vulnerability, that openness, is actually what wins.
Most of the time Marko creates art for someone, not only is the art completely free, he almost always ends up giving them extra gifts of some kind for having the courage to say YES to some random stranger asking to make them something. He’s hidden $500 inside custom shoes for people, he’s paid people’s entire monthly rent for allowing him to make them something, he’s learned about them intimately enough that the gifts he gives makes them cry. Sure he gets a lot of views, sure he makes a lot of money doing so, but dammit, he’s doing so much more than nothing. All of this leads to a simple question:
Why aren’t we?
What would change if we all did? And I don’t mean putting a backpack on, getting a camera out, and randomly approaching strangers to ask if you can make them something. I don’t mean trying to sneak into Glastonbury in a Trojan Horse, or trying to hitchhike a ride on a billionaire’s private jet. I mean, opening up ourselves to the great big goofy experience that is the human one. I mean treating everyone you encounter as a friend you just haven’t met yet. I mean being vulnerable enough to appear silly, to be REAL.
So many are so wrapped up in trying to be cool, trying to fit in, trying to just blend into the background fabric of life that they completely abandon what it is that makes them unique, that makes them special, that makes them vital to that exact fabric they try to fade into. When we created our North Pole Ninjas children’s book, we tried to infuse a bit of this spirit into some of the missions, and so today, I want to throw a few at you. Totally optional, but totally worth trying to open yourself up again.
Try these:
Open your phone, text three different people an honest and kind compliment with zero context. See what happens.
The first stranger you encounter today, smile at, and say Hello. Simple.
The next person that helps you at a grocery store, coffee shop, whatever, ask their actual name, and then thank them using it.
Ask someone random a completely random question. “What’s your favorite smell on earth?” Whatever.
Choose color, even for a day. Wear something loud, ridiculous, and possibly out-of-character for you.
Be helpful. Hold the doors, offer to let people cut in line, pay for the person behind you’s coffee, whatever. Do something kind without making a fuss about it.
You don’t have to do em, I won’t force you, but I think they could help. And if you don’t wanna try these, just watch the silly videos on YouTube when you’re eating lunch today. Watch for yourself and see what happens when people take the ridiculous leaps with those they’ve never met.
Magic happens, for them, for the people they meet, and it can for us.
You’ll see.
Stay open to it,
the world and all its strangeness.
Let kindness guide you.
