So it started with the song "Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti & Spearhead, Cherine Tanya Anderson. That song was on the "Caribbean Beach Party" playlist I found on Spotify during our Virgin Islands trip. It's a phenomenal playlist--we listened to it for the entire 9 days of our trip. I had heard the song before, but it resonated with me deeply all week, while on the beach, in the car, on the ferry. The song is about love between 2 people while admiring the beauty of life. Consider the lines:

"It seems like everywhere I go, the more I see, the less I know"

"But I know one thing, that I love you"

The song brought intense emotions about my beautiful wife, the goddess I met across these stars, who has become an inextricable part of my life. But it also made me think about love in general. There's a part in the song that repeats "I love you" 12 times in a row, and it captured my heart, because it reinforced what we all know deep down upon birth: that life is about love. That our purpose in this universe is love.

Somehow, a few days after listening to that song, I was admiring the view of several beautiful islands, and I thought about a quote I came across from back in my Reddit days. I think it was from one of those typical Ask Reddit threads, "what's the best advice you've ever received, or a quote you've heard that still deeply resonates with you?" I remembered reading someone's answer (I was always only ever a lurker), "if the whole world acted the way you do, what would the world be like?" It must have resonated with me upon reading, because I came upon it again in the hills of Jost Van Dyke, reflecting on my own attitude and behavior. If we want to enjoy a considerate, peaceful journey in life, then we have to do our part.

Through that reggae playlist, and the songs about love, I felt I was embodying a wanderer full of love for the world and anyone I ran across. I felt confident, and proud, that in some small way I was contributing through a personality of politeness and friendliness with all my interactions, both with locals and other tourists. The people of the Caribbean are beautiful, and I'll treasure the trip forever.

And then today, on my first run since Christmas Eve, I finished the last 20 minutes of episode #2706 of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, featuring a discussion about the implications of AI with Aza Raskin and Tristan Harris. It's a fantastic episode that I highly recommend to anyone intrigued by how our world may change with the advent of artificial general intelligence. Aza Raskin, towards the end of the episode, explains his disapproval with the common question, 'are you an optimist or a pessimist?' He posits that both paradigms are flawed because they seek their own confirmation bias, no matter positive or negative, and thus enable one to absolve themselves of responsibility or agency.

I've felt the malaise in the world the past few months, even few years. I've succumbed to helplessness or indifference at times. But hearing Raskin's words jolted me back to my old conviction of hope, that we can inspire change--agency and responsibility--in others, that we can change the world.

I finished the episode before I finished my run. So I switched back to the Caribbean Beach Party playlist for the last few minutes. The first song that played was "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. I relished my good fortune. And I came across the poignant line, "I hear babies cry and I watch them grow, they'll learn much more than we'll know. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world."

What a beautiful thought, that our children will be better than us, will accomplish more than us, live longer than us, enjoy a better life than us. Because it's not about us, it's about love. It's about developing a deep conviction in our agency and our responsibility to contribute to the universe. To change the world... to change it for those after us, to plant trees of which we will never enjoy their shade.

And then "Say Hey (I Love You)" followed. I couldn't believe it, and nearly started crying on my run. It had come full circle--all these epiphanies and reflections and deep feelings returned back to where they originated last week--with a song about love. A love song not 'for the world,' but 'a song about a boy and a girl.'

I think it's all interconnected. We find those we love, those star crossed people we 'bump into in the middle of the road' and we make a beautiful life full of love with them. And that in turn provides us the context to envision a better world, the conviction to change the world and contribute to the universe with our own agency and responsibility, together. That's exactly what I'm going to do, and I hope you do too. I'll be goin' now, but I'll be back home around the way.