This thing is so beautiful it made me cry. It made me want to travel and dance. Check it out. The video usually plays best when you pause it, let it fully load, then play.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

The first time I watched it, smiling at the goofy dance but more at the joyful way Matt does it, I thought about my own world travels, particularly when I was younger. However, as the locales in the video piled up (Australia, Zanzibar, the Netherlands, Mexico), I wondered, first, “Wow, where’d he get the money for all this travel?” and, second, “So did he always dance alone? Did no one join him? Didn’t he want anyone to join him?” Almost on cue, there’s that mad rush of people into the camera, culminating, as the music soars, with that ecstatic pile-up in Madrid. Tears began to well in my eyes at this point. Traveling isn’t just about seeing new places, it’s about making connections. At a time when most of us haven't been, here's someone who has. Life can be this way: big and together and uninhibited. If it's wish fulfillment, it still beats any wish-fulfillment fantasy coming out of Hollywood. But I don't think it is wish fulfillment. He made it happen, so can you. So can I. 

The music is gorgeous, too.

Favorite moments: The shift in colors from the deserts of Australia to the red tulip fields of Lisse, the Netherlands; the barking dog in Kuwait City; dancing in front of all of those guys in Turkey; the kids in the Solomon Islands and the Philippines and Mali; the DMZ; the girl in the red skirt in Warsaw; how absolutely HAPPY Matt looks in Papua, New Guinea; the wave in Tonga (of course); and Nellis Airspace, Nevada. But my absolute favorite moment is in Gurgoan, India. That's so wonderful. So much fun.

What about you? Favorite moments?