I blogged about Matt first at The Awearness Blog [1] after I first saw the video via Metafilter [2]. Metafilter is a snarkful community of wen connoisseurs who have a witty remark or twenty at the ready. So it was with shock that I saw comment after comment of Mefites saying that this video brough a tear to their eye.
I've watched this video at least 50 times --my kids have been playing it all day today. It's not the music or the somg that brings a tear to my eye. I can be in a different room, like I am right now, and listen to the music and have no reaction.
No.
It's watching the pure joy, the pure radiance, the pure light beaming from all those dancing, happy faces that makes me cry.
I cry because it is so uncommon to see such selfless joy these days. Matt has a quality not of "whatever" but of real in the moment joy.
Notice how his face beams as radiant as in the last place he was filmed. I also love there's a sense of humility in what's his doing. Not only does he look goofy --there is a moment in the Solomon Islands where he's overcome by the classroom full of kids squealing with joy delight.
My favorite moments, by the way, are when he gets hit by the wave, the silly dance in India, his utterly ridiculous moment in North Korea's demilitarized zone (DMZ) and the one in San Francisco just because of the guy in the wheelchair dancing in the sand. Oh, and the moment in Madrid reminds of the running of the bulls in Pamplona. And the two little girls in Soweto and the rain in Canada, that rain makes me almost want to sob out loud.
And that's the thing. What makes these videos amazing (he's been doing them since 2005), is that Matt is actually the prop and not the center of the stage. The vistas of some of the places he's been to are breath taking, but it's his complete surrender to those dancing around him that is what's such a joy to watch.
It's the joy, the people, the silliness, the play. I miss those in my life. It's why to a lot of my fellow MeFites and me, this video makes us smile, laugh, cry and warm and fuzzy inside all at the same time.
Given how much of a hardened cynic I can be, that's a wonderful gift to receive.
It's why I believe Matt harding is a modern day Bodhisattva [3]
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