Transcription
[Music]
Abby Road, London. Five decades ago, four young men made this street famous all around the world. And just a few steps up the street, there, on June 25th, 1967, they performed a song live by satellite to an audience of almost half a billion people. That song was "All You Need Is Love." It was the Summer of Love.
I was working at a little theater in Vermont when I heard it. And like so many young people everywhere, we were swept up by the sense of hope that love was all you needed to end war, poverty, and oppression. It's easy, right? Seems naive now. But stop and think for a minute about how our lives are built around love: families and our communities. Is it really naive to think that love can change the world?
What happens when we don't have love? Why are these children rocking back and forth? Because children will never help as infants. Why are we willing to suffer for love, even die for it? What happens on those battlefields forges something that truly cannot be repeated anywhere else. Should passion be left to fate? Is it really meant to just be chance that you meet someone that you're meant to spend the rest of your life with? And can love reach everyone? It's a way of making someone feel like there's someone out there who cares.
[Music]
Yeah, this is my journey to discover the ties that bind us and the common humanity inside us. This is the story of us.
[Music]
I'm in Southern California to meet Isidor Ruckle. Isidor grew up in a Romanian orphanage and didn't experience the love most of us take for granted: the love of a parent.
"You were born in Romania?" "That is that's correct. But you wound up in an orphanage at an early age?" "I did. My parents took me to a hospital to be treated for my flu or cold. The doctor gave me an injection and instead of the needles being sterilized and disinfected, it was used time after time on children after children, and I contracted polio. So my parents said, 'What on earth did you do to his leg?' 'His leg is dead. Can't move it anymore.' The doctor said he'd have to stay for a couple of weeks. Once my parents left me there, they never came back. At the age of 3 years old, I was put in the hospital for the irrecoverable children and grew up there until I was 11 years old."
In the 24 years that Nicolae Ceaușescu ruled Romania, many children shared Isidor's fate. Ceaușescu decreed that every family must have at least five children or pay an extreme tax penalty. If you couldn't afford to feed five children, often the only option was to give some of them to one of Romania's overcrowded state orphanages.
"So, Izzy, you spent 8 years?" "Mhm." "Growing up in an orphanage. What was that like?" "There are moments where you wonder, um, am I going to survive this? None of us have. We're taken outside. No sunlight. No sunlight. Looking around at where we are, playground, the trees, the grass. We do not have anything like this. Nothing close to it."
"No. I wanted to show you this video so you could actually see it for yourself what my life in the institution was in Romania. I mean, even the building from the outside looks intimidating. When you walk into the building, it smells nothing but soaked urine and..."
"PC."
"Oh my goodness gracious. About how many kids can you think would be in that orphanage?" "About 400, 500 children. 4, 500 children and not nearly enough people to look after them."
"Why are these children rocking back and forth?" "Because children were never held as infants and they were developing ways to nurture themselves. And walking back and forth was one of the ways." "You experienced it?" "I experienced it. I used to walk back and forth for a long time, and I grew out of the out of that eventually."
"Who was that kid?" "That was me. That was me."
"In 1990, I had more opportunity than others. I had a worker named Onisha, and I actually still have her picture. And, um, I will never forget this woman. She was one of the most amazing workers that worked there. Onisha took me home for one night. I forgot about the institution. My experience at home was the greatest gift. She cared for me like I was her son. From that moment on, other workers saw my potential. Okay, I want to take him home too. And from there, it just gradually grew till I went home with almost the entire staff that worked there. It's because of them that I learned how to love, how to have compassion, how to care, how to have sympathy. I mean, I had never done that before. I never could have hugged someone."
"Did you see this happen with any other kids?" "No. I was very fortunate and lucky. And because of their love, I believe I was able to grow and develop a lot better than others."
"So how'd you get out of this orphanage?" "And these workers called out my name and another boy's named Chian. 'Isidor and Chian, come here. You're going to America.' Just like that." "Just like that?" "And we were shocked. So they put us in at a nurse's office. And I asked, 'Who's going to be my mom?' And Mara said, 'I'm going to be your mom.' And I said, 'Then that's who I want my mom to be.'"
"So your parents are here?" "Yes. Mom and Dad, come right in."
"Good morning, Daniel." "Good morning." "I am Marles." "How do you do?" "You got your own kids?" "Yeah, you got three lovely children that you..." "You could have bring this mud mud into?" "All five of us really wanted him. I thought he was the most charming thing, pretty much." "HED?" "Yes." "Okay."
At first, life in America was new and exciting for Isidor. He went to school, played sports, and experienced something he'd never had before: a family that loved him. But then things started to go wrong.
"They got start to go bad. I wasn't used to the family. I didn't care for them. They were not my family. They were nothing. I hated them all. The bitterness, I held it in. And when I exploded, I took it out on them because they were the closest to me. There are times where I was so out of hand, the police had to come over."
"Do you have any clue why?" "I don't know. It didn't make sense to me. I mean, I don't, I couldn't understand it."
"I think there were just some attachment issues as a result of, you know, growing up without, you know, someone calling him and hugging him and loving on him. When a child grows and develops, they need to be nurtured, cared for, and loved. Without it, they were mentally affected."
By the time Isidor turned 16, his rejection of his adoptive family reached a boiling point. He moved out of the house, severed all ties with them. But then, when he was 18, he learned that Marles and his adoptive sisters were in a serious car accident.
[Music]
"I was so devastated. And I was very scared that I was going to lose them. I had done so much damage in the family that I didn't think I was going to be accepted or even talked to."
"They opened the door, and I apologized to them. I, I remember still to this day. He told us that, um, he loved us. And, uh, I'm not sure that we'd ever, ever heard that. But that was a turnaround for him."
"Mhm. The beginning. Yeah."
"I wasn't willing to give up. He's my son. I, I, whether he's my flesh and blood, it didn't matter. I refused to give up."
"Once I saw that they were able to forgive me, at that moment, I made it like a covenant with myself. I did not want to lose them again."
"All right, so now what? We're still doing the same thing. We have five more children. We've adopted them."
"BL for punishment?"
"And you?"
"I'm advocating for several things because I definitely don't want to see children, not only in Romania but anywhere in the world, uh, to endure what we endured. I think that the greatest gift of all was being adopted and be able to have the best family. I have to admit them. I do realize that took me a while. But now you do."
[Music]
"When I was a little boy, I had all this trees, grass, sound of birds, had a loving family."
It is heartbreaking to learn what Isidor and so many young Romanian children had to live through. Isidor himself was lucky. He had his nursemaids and his adoptive parents. Now, he dedicates himself to helping other orphans, securing for them something that was as vital to their well-being as food and shelter: love.
All of us need to receive love. But giving love often requires sacrifice. Many parents stop putting themselves first. They sacrifice their careers, work second jobs, or give up their social lives to care for their children. In some cases, the sacrifices we make for love cause physical pain and leave lasting scars.
I'm traveling to a remote region of Southern Ethiopia to visit a village of the Hamar tribe. Anthropologist Dr. Samuel Tara, who has lived with the Hamar, tells me they will be happy to show me the pain they endure for love.
"Is this an old lady?" "How mean?" "How old is it?" "She has been here for two, three, four centuries."
"So they're pastoral?" "Yes. They have goats, they have cows, they have sheep."
"Cuz I was going to ask if I could get eggs Benedict here, but I guess not, huh?" "Yeah, no."
[Music]
Okay. The Hamar in this village are all members of an extended family. Those tight family bonds are vital to their survival in this dry and rugged land.
"I hear this sort of joyous sound going on. We are about to witness an age-old ceremony. Men of the Hamar jump over the bulls. It's a rite of transition from childhood to adulthood."
"Oh, okay. And then that makes him eligible to marry?" "And that makes eligible for marriage."
The Hamar have invited us to witness that traditional bull-jumping ceremony. Samuel tells me most of the day's events aren't focused on the young man who's coming of age, but on his female relatives.
[Music]
"This is praising the guy who's going to live and singing, dancing, praising the family."
A crucial part of the ceremony is the display of love the women make for the young boy.
"This is... abuse."
The Hamar people have been holding coming-of-age ceremonies for young men here on the banks of the Omo River for hundreds of years. A central part of the event is his female relatives being whipped. I've heard of other painful ritual practices often directed against women, but something about this seems different.
"For provoking the men?" "None of the whippers are trying to whip with the girl they choose. They choose to do it." "Yeah. Hard for me to fathom because I don't understand why the woman wants to get whipped." "But from their own perspective, they're doing it to show and to express their love. No matter what comes or no matter what happens, she loves her brother. So this is a kind of for the love that he has for her."
Samuel explains that these women know the boys who are coming of age will make sacrifices and face dangers. Hurting cattle in Ethiopia's rugged landscape, being whipped is their way of declaring that they are willing to endure hardship as well.
But this is all so shocking that I want to ask the women directly why they are doing this.
"I've been watching for a good while and I see women getting whipped. It seems painful and cruel. Why do you do it?" "Culture. When your brother lives, or when your uncle lives, then you have to get whipped for them to feel like he's jumping. They have to be whipped. Okay? And they cannot separate the two."
Fresh cuts laid down on top of old scars serve as proof of the women's love for the bull jumper. It's time now for him to show his bravery.
"These are the cattle. These are the cattle. And a young man is going to come." "Yeah." "The man jumps over a bunch of them." "Yeah." "He's going to jump. He's very young." "Yeah, very young."
"The whip will be lining them up around there, and then once they are lined up, they will hold tight their homes and their t..." "Okay, so they don't move." "So that they don't move. And then the boy..."
[Music]
"R..." "Yeah, he's doing it."
"What happens if he..."
[Music]
"falls?"
The young man must run over the cattle at least four times to complete his transition to adult. The more runs he makes, the more of a man he is in the eyes of his extended family.
"This is number..."
[Music]
"four."
"He wants to run more." "Yeah, he's coming back for number five."
[Music]
"Now he has become a big man."
"How many cows could you jump over?" "I probably couldn't make it over one."
Maybe the strength of the Hamar women is remarkable. They managed to take something painful and turn it into something that empowers them. The scars that they carry are like a signature on a contract that says, "We are bound by love." It strikes me that human society may not have made it without this kind of love between siblings and parent and child. It's the basic glue that holds humankind together.
The bonds of family are cemented by this form of sacrificial love. But they are also built on another type of love: the passion that strikes two people. Anthony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet. These romantic tales are the epitome of how we view love. To paraphrase William Shakespeare, love is a fire sparkling in lover's eyes. But I wonder if romantic love alone is enough to sustain a marriage. Only recently, and mostly only in developed countries, has marriage based on passionate love between strangers replaced marriages arranged by families.
"The know."
I'm on my way to Hartford, England, to meet lawyer Hina Bellz, whose Pakistani heritage presented her with a choice between both forms of marriage.
"Come on, come, come on in."
"Tell me about your family background." "Well, I was brought up in, um, Andover and Hampshire, although I was actually born in Pakistan."
"So you grew up here in the UK?" "Yes. It was completely all white, all English. And so we grew up secluded from anyone of a similar cultural background to us."
"What about schooling? Did you go to college?" "I did. And I met someone at university."
"Were you married?" "Yes. Um, it was what you would conventionally call a love marriage. It was all very idyllic for a short while."
"How short?" "A year." "Yeah, that's that's shorty." "Yeah."
"I discovered that actually he had been, um, unfaithful." "Full." "Okay. So that means divorce." "It did. Yes."
"So I threw myself into my career and I, and I worked very hard, um, and became a successful attorney. Life in the city as a single girl was actually quite a lonely experience. Even though I had so many friends, I knew that there was something hollow and empty and missing in my life. And it wasn't very easy for me, with the experience that I had been through, to easily just trust another. And I had a sort of instinct that I knew I wouldn't find it just by bumping into someone in the local supermarket."
"You had to make some sort of change." "I think that's absolutely right."
After a failed first marriage, Hina felt the urge to get reacquainted with her Pakistani roots.
"I then had a very good job opportunity arise, so I took that opportunity to take a break between jobs and take some proper time out. So I decided to go to Pakistan and meet my grandmother."
"After a few days of arriving, I noticed when we went out to a restaurant that a strange man would appear and just be shuffled over to sit next to me. And at first, I was unsure as to what the reason was. And then my grandmother would sort of come over and nudge me afterwards and say, 'What did you think of him?' And I'm like, 'Be nice if he could actually string a sentence together.' But then the penny dropped quite quickly that my, um, family were, um, effectively trying to introduce me to, um, a possible suitable match. An arranged marriage."
"What would you have been thinking about the idea of arranged marriages?" "Well, it was, it was strange. I felt very much that I was a Western woman that had been brought up in the UK, and this was all just not for me. This is not something, kind of foreign." "Yes, it's foreign. It's a bit backward. Why would I think about marrying someone in this way?" "But that's okay. I'll, I'll humor you all for a bit. I'll sort of go along with it."
"How many persons do you think your grandmother paraded before you?" "There were about four or five, as I recall." "Mhm."
"And then, just as we were about to leave, it was probably the day before, there was another chap. And he was very different. Extremely charming, had a wonderful smile, good-looking. I noticed from across the room my grandmother looking at me. She had these long, slim, dark eyes, and she was looking at me and looking at him like this."
"But what happened was, I flew back to the UK. And literally the day after I arrived, um, my mother got a phone call from my grandmother who said, 'I'd like to propose a match, um, a marriage match between Cameron and Hina. Can you ask her if that's something that she would be interested in proceeding with?'"
"On the one hand, I thought, 'Dive in, jump off the cliff and have it go.' On the other hand, I was thinking, 'What's gone wrong with you that you're considering this?' So there was conflict in my own mind because of course I'd only met Cam for about half an hour to an hour."
"Then what?" "Well, I think I had a bit of an epiphany when I was out there because I realized that maybe culturally different to something that I had been brought up around, but maybe it wasn't a bad thing. Maybe there was something that it had to offer. I actually said yes, I would like to proceed. And I was thinking, 'You're...' "
[Music]
"crazy."
Hina Bellz agreed to marry a man whom she had only met once for half an hour. She chose to trust the opinion of her Pakistani family rather than simply rely on the spark of passion.
"It was virtually no time at all that we were married over the telephone by a telephone Nikah ceremony."
"A Nikah ceremony is a wedding ceremony which is like the actual wedding, sort of the point of commitment."
"Do you want to tell on the telephone?" "He's in Pakistan." "Yes." "And you're here in the UK?" "That's right." "And you're married now?" "We're technically married. But afterwards, I went for a proper fall ceremony in..."
[Music]
"Pakistan."
"It worked out wonderfully. I can honestly say I believe I found myself soulmate."
"Would you like to meet him?" "Yeah, of course."
"Hello, Cameron." "Hi." "Nice to meet you." "How are you?" "I'm fine."
"So did you know you're being set up?" "No, not, not at all." "Yeah, yeah." "My father, he said, 'Come, what do you think about the girl you saw?' And, uh, I said, 'Wow.'"
[Music]
"M." "And I said, 'I wish she, she'll be my wife.'"
"So how long have you been together?" "15 years." "15 years?" "Yeah. We have an eight and a 10-year-old now, two beautiful sons."
"So maybe it's a good thing to have family involved in such a momentous decision?" "I think you're right. I think part of the reason why there are so many website dating applications is because there isn't an easy access to people."
"Is it really meant to just be chance that you meet someone that you're meant to spend the rest of your life with? Do we really want to leave that purely to a chance meeting at a party?"
"In Pakistan, you always see arranged marriages, and they last long. They're a blessing from parents. I had a lot more confidence and trust because I knew that it my family was involved. And so there was a lot more comfort than I had."
"Okay, so how, how wrong would I be if I said yours is not an arranged marriage? Yours is a marriage by consent."
The core of the difference is simply that when a marriage is arranged, it is arranged because the objective is to introduce two people for the purposes of getting married, rather than for the purposes of going out and having fun. There are such things as forced marriages. Anyone being compelled to marry someone they don't want to is completely wrong. An arrangement should be by choice.
Ultimately, we think love has to be learned. There is something powerful about going into a relationship with clear expectations on either side and clear hopes and desires on either side, and not having those aspects clouded by the more superficial feelings. There's a possibility, I think, that that could lead to a longer-term, more lasting, more fulfilling relationship.
"You do look properly matched to me. I mean, I can say certainly." "M." "See how it could come about between you two." "Looks right. Feels right. Even smells right." "Long guys." "Thank you."
It had never occurred to me that an arranged marriage could be the foundation of a loving relationship. Not to Hina either. But she and Cam have built upon the expectations placed on their match by their families. They built a bond that is founded on both passion and practicality.
Hi. Bye. Love. And they're raising a couple of wonderful boys.
Love has so many forms. It's passionate. It's painful. It's nurtured. Love binds people together, even when love is the last thing on their minds.
I'm meeting Army Major William Swinson, who received the Medal of Honor for his bravery in Afghanistan. Will Swinson was there for his brothers. He was there for us all. The story of how he risked his life for his brothers in arms is a true story of love.
"Brothers in arms. What does that term mean to you?" "It's a term that's always defined our relationship to one another in the military. Friendship. A family that's forged, whether it's basic training or whether it's an experience that was forged in war."
"Now, you were in Afghanistan?" "That's correct. We had US Army, US Air Force, and US Navy assets all participating in the joint operation to help pacify a troubled part of our region. We were all collectively working with respective Afghan partners. Sergeant First Class Kenneth Westbrook and I were working with our Afghan border patrol."
"Sergeant Westbrook was in effect your right-hand man?" "Sergeant Westbrook is a friend of yours." "We had not known each other prior to this deployment. We got to know each other very well. I could rely on him. We were very different in every way. However, we ultimately saw that we had an objective, a goal, and that we were going to get there together."
On September 8th, 2009, Major Swinson, Sergeant Westbrook, and their Afghan border patrol unit were tasked with escorting a contingent from the Afghan Army and the US Marines. They were headed to a meeting of elders in the village of Ganal. But this was not a mission that intended on being combat.
"We were there to support that operation. Okay. So what happened?" "You pick your battles, but sometimes your battles pick you."
"The mission came under fire." "That's correct. We never entered the village before we were fired upon, and it rapidly escalated into a significant amount of direct, accurate, lethal fire."
[Music]
Major William Swinson had set out on a mission to help Afghan soldiers broker a peace deal with tribal elders in the village of Ganal. All of a sudden, the mission came under attack, and they were surrounded by as many as 60 insurgent fighters. He and his entire unit were battling to save their own lives.
"We had received at least four of our first casualties within the first 5 minutes. This battle extended over 6 hours. Six hours. And over these 6 hours, we had a number of heroic acts that occurred across that battlefield. We were firmly committed to one goal: extracting our survivors, recovering our wounded and dead, and getting off that battlefield so we could come back and fight another day."
Major Swinson repeatedly entered the kill zone to rescue wounded and fallen US and Afghan soldiers, but he wasn't alone in his efforts.
"Sergeant First Class Westbrook was providing supporting fire heroically, and he was wounded. And he called out to me, 'Will, I'm hit.' And he didn't tell me how badly wounded he was. He never indicated how significant his injuries were, but they were grave. And I was watching him, checking to make sure he was okay, and he was. And he provided covering fire for who knows how long before he finally said, 'I'm losing it. I need help over here.' And I knew he was serious. And I went over to him, and he and I began to extract off the battlefield. And he, on his own two feet, walked hundreds of yards. Hundreds of yards through complex terrain. But again, I had not at this point understood the severity of it."
"You watch this together. This helicopter crew was under fire at this time. For them to land a helicopter full of fuel in that area is testament to their bravery as well. This is me. Dust you see is providing some level of protection from direct fire. You can see here that Sergeant First Class Westbrook, the bullet had destroyed his shoulder, significant internal damage and bleeding. At this point, he had lost so much blood that it was difficult for him to, uh, maintain cautiousness."
"This is Sergeant First Class Westbrook walking on his own two feet off that battlefield after he had been doing his job. At that point, told him he'd done his job. It's time to go home. And I gave him a kiss on the head."
"Your brother in arms, you gave a kiss on the head. Would you agree it qualifies his love?" "It does qualify as love."
"The people you serve with, the people you go to conflict with, the people that you have an experience and that intensity forges friendships. It forges bonds. It forges something that truly cannot be repeated anywhere else. What happens on those battlefields, what happens amongst our service members in those situations, creates something that really cannot be described. It can be seen. It can be witnessed. But it really has to be felt. It's powerful. And it extends beyond just the soldier, just that sailor, that Marine. It extends to even their families. You feel like you've forged a new family, a new bond."
"So Sergeant Westbrook was rather severely wounded, but not mortally, right?" "What happened to her?"
"Sergeant Westbrook had the opportunity to go home. He didn't want to. He wanted to stay, keep fighting. He got to go home. He got to see his family. Unfortunately, as a result of complications, he passed away a month later back in the United States with his family by his side."
"So out of all of that, he died." "This is war. It's not fair."
"He would have returned to that battlefield if he could have. He would have returned right by my side, and he and I would have continued our mission. But he gave everything for what he loved, for what he believed in. And I take some solace in knowing that he got home."
"Yeah. Rough talking about it, isn't it?" "Thank you."
The courage that Major Swinson showed on that fateful day is inspiring. But what strikes me most is that kiss. What it reveals. It's not romantic. No. It's a kiss of fellowship. A profound bond with someone you have no blood ties with. How could we ever have moved beyond small tribes without that bond? Our cities, our entire nations, could not exist without love.
Love has built our world. But not everyone receives the love they need. Around us, there are people who are excluded, who feel invisible to the rest of society. Can we help bring them back? Simply by offering them love?
[Music]
Across Europe and North America, there are nearly 5 million homeless. Some of us are moved to help these people through charity. You could call charities organizations built from love. In the US, 63 million volunteers donated 8 billion hours to homelessness and other causes in 2016. But suffering persists all the same. I wonder if there's a better way to show love for those in need.
I'm in London to meet Joshua Coons. He's a hairdresser, and he believes small acts of love can make a big impact.
"How you doing?" "I'm doing good. Good to see to meet you." "Great to meet you." "What, uh, what am I doing with the store?" "I'm going to show you."
"Okay, so, um, I'm going to take you around Peckham. Peckham was once one of London's most downtrodden neighborhoods. Today, it's in transition. On the same block, you can find trendy coffee shops, street gangs, and the homeless."
"I'm going to go talk to this guy down here quickly. Okay, just a sec."
Joshua hopes he can help the homeless not by offering them money or food, but by giving them a haircut.
"Okay, Stuart. When was the last time you had a haircut?" "In November last year." "December, January, February. Five months ago." "March, April."
"How'd you come to be homeless?" "J, I broke my hip and they stopped my benefits. And at the time, I was like, stupid. I was getting involved with drugs and things. I didn't really care. And next thing I them, you know, they came out, said, 'Right, you're out.' That was, uh, 24th of January 2016. And I've been homeless since."
"There's another world on the street. You can't go home anymore. Now you're alone." "Well, I came close once in 1962. Couldn't pay my rent. And I had, I had four roommates, but I couldn't pay my rent for a couple, couple of months. And they said, 'Well, you got to go.' Had my duffel bag on my shoulder and thinking, 'Now where am I going to go?'"
"Whereabouts was that?" "San Francisco." "Frisco." "This go." "Luckily, I had friends. Somebody who took me in."
"A lot of people look at you, they think, you know, it's your fault you're there. You deserve it. You know, you've done something wrong." "Wasn't my case. I mean, I just built her."
"How long have you been doing this, John?" "For a couple of years now."
"So what got you started?" "I think it was feeling a bit helpless, really, if I'm honest. Like it came from a feeling of helplessness of, how can I affect a problem that seems so big? How do I even begin to start? From that feeling of helplessness came, like, I have to start with one person. Just talking to one person, finding out about them. And I think that makes you feel empowered to make bigger changes."
"It's a bit more than giving a haircut or getting a haircut." "Yeah, exactly right. Just because we're not related, I feel like there's got to be those support for the people who don't have that. And, well, I know haut's not a big thing. I know it's not going to change somebody's world, but for me, it's just a way of spending time with someone. It's a way of making someone hopefully feel like that there's someone out there who cares, you know, even if that is a stranger, right?"
"So, yeah. This is it."
"Well, it's just coming off. I've got a chin under there. I think probably got two."
"Okay. You're ready to say goodbye to this mustache?" "It's gone. It's going. Going. Gone."
"Well, I must say, Stuart, you look human." "Well, thank you." "Oh, but I must say, you say Stuart. You say my name. You're talking to me, and I recognize your voice, you know. It's like, 'Oh, do you now?'"
"Do you have a special sleeping place?" "Or do you way over in C Garden?" "Ah, okay. It's a doorway that I've slept in a few months now. The security don't bother me on the street."
"Your day-to-day, what would you say love means to you?" "Usually, it hits me like the first person to say good morning to me. Yeah. You, I'll be lying there, just, I'm doing my sleeping bag, just climbing out, and somebody walks by, says, 'Morning.' Whoa, lovely. But when you don't hear a good morning from anyone, it's like nobody cares."
"Another big reason for doing this. When people walk past and they see someone helping another person, I think it's infectious. It ripples, you know. And I think that's that's part of this, to try and inspire other people. So we've created a social media movement, #DoSomethingForNothing, and people are using this hashtag in different places to perform goodwill acts, you know. So it's not just about hairdressers."
"So Stuart, I'm thinking now, what's got Josh here with you? Is his sense of 'Love Thy Neighbor'? Do something for someone for nothing?" "What do you think about that?" "Be a lot more dumb, wouldn't there?" "Yeah, yeah, man."
"And final touch. We ready?" "I think there you are. Bet you don't recognize this guy." "I don't." "Yeah."
"In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."
[Music]
"Tada!"
"I'm 20 years younger." "Oh, yeah." "Stuart." "What we say? Nobody's going to recognize me, mate." "You're, you're a new man."
"Right now, thank you." "How do you feel?" "Like a new man." "Yeah." "Do you recognize yourself then?" "Um, yes. Yeah. I used to once when I was a lot younger."
"All right, so what I want to say to the both of you is thank you very much." "Thank you very much." "Thank you." "Quite a new experience. Someone like you walking around the city doing good stuff like that." "Thank you." "You do do it. It's really terrific what Joshua is doing." "I'm going to see you again soon." "Thanks."
Joshua doesn't expect these small acts of kindness to end homelessness, but he hopes the love he shows people will boost their self-esteem and may help them rebuild their lives.
"Just imagine if each of us took five minutes out of our day to do something loving for another person. I don't care if it's a family member or your friend or a total stranger. Imagine what a transformation we could make in this world."
Love is the most powerful force we know. Back when we all lived in small tribes, that kept our extended families together. But it has grown into so much more than that today. Love can reach all the way around the world. It is endlessly adaptable, surprising, and healing. It has the power to inspire us, to push our society forward. I still believe love can change the world, like I did in 1967. We just have to remember, there's nothing we can do that can't be done with love.
[Music]