What AI Will Never Find

I didn’t want to Write About Trump Today - I needed to tell you about dolphins instead.

I’ve been a little quiet these last few days.

I’ve started writing half a dozen essays about the latest absurdities unfolding in the world, only to close my laptop halfway through.

Every time I open Substack, I find another piece about men… well… being men. Another breakdown of Trump’s latest greatest hits. Another meditation on greed, capitalism, billionaires eating the planet, or my personal favorite, the sudden realization that the spirituality and wellness industry has always been a modern-day caravan of snake oil salesmen in linen pants.

I’ve been writing about those things for years. I’m oddly delighted everyone has finally caught up.

I’m also a little sad that so very little has changed.

But lately I’ve wanted to write about something else.

Something magical.

Something that might smooth the sharp edges of the constant anxiety so many of us are carrying around these days.

Yesterday I flew home from Texas and found myself sitting next to a woman who had spent years living in Africa. We started talking, and suddenly I was transported back to one of the most extraordinary days of my life.

Sometimes, when the world feels particularly heavy, we have to remember that impossible things happen too.

Years ago I was filming in Mozambique. We had traveled to a tiny island just off the coast to scout a location for an upcoming shoot.

Getting there required climbing into what was generously described as a “boat.”

Now, when I say “boat,” I mean something that should probably have carried five people, assuming nobody had packed a lunch.

There were nine of us.

I’m fairly certain the promise of a generous tip from a bunch of Americans who looked like they had money temporarily overrode every survival instinct this man possessed. Economics has been making questionable decisions for humanity for a very long time.

Our fearless captain smiled confidently and delivered the universal phrase heard in questionable transportation all over the world:

“Come on. It’ll be fine.”

Famous last words.

After about fifteen minutes, we reached the island.

It felt like stepping backward through time.

Part of the island had already begun transforming into luxury beachfront development. After Mozambique’s civil war, wealthy developers had swept in buying coastal property until the government eventually stepped in, requiring majority Mozambican ownership.

Thankfully, the side we landed on had somehow escaped.

Local fishermen still arrived in impossibly small wooden boats to gather coconuts.

The beaches were alive with strange little creatures.

Everything felt untouched.

It was one of those rare places where you look around and quietly wonder if the world used to look like this everywhere.

We wandered for maybe twenty minutes before our captain came sprinting toward us.

“We have to leave. Now.”

He wasn’t smiling anymore.

Out over the ocean, dark clouds were racing toward us.

We hurried back to our floating insurance nightmare and shoved off.

As we pulled away, I looked behind us.

Those clouds that had seemed comfortably distant only moments before were suddenly almost on top of us.

Our little engine screamed with every ounce of horsepower its tiny heart could muster.

The captain pushed it as hard as he could.

The storm didn’t care.

Within seconds rain was pounding us.

The sky disappeared.

The shoreline vanished.

We couldn’t see land anymore.

We were barely a mile offshore, but it felt as though we’d somehow become hopelessly lost in the middle of an endless ocean.

The captain’s confidence evaporated.

You could see it in his face.

He knew.

He had become painfully aware that perhaps squeezing nine people into a boat designed by optimism rather than engineering had not been his finest career decision.

The waves grew bigger.

The wind pushed us sideways.

Everyone grabbed onto whatever they could.

And then…

Out of absolutely nowhere…

Dolphins.

An entire pod erupted from the sea around us.

Not one or two.

Dozens.

They began swimming alongside the boat, leaping through the crashing water.

And then something even stranger happened.

They started nudging us.

Not dramatically.

Not like something from a Disney movie.

Just enough.

Again. And again.

Until our little boat gradually turned toward shore.

The sea still raged around us, but suddenly we weren’t drifting anymore.

We were moving.

Toward land.

I remember desperately trying to pull out my video camera because this was long before we all carried tiny film studios in our pockets.

Between hanging on for dear life and trying not to launch my camera into the Indian Ocean, I managed to capture some of it.

Sadly, somewhere over the years that footage disappeared. It’s one of the few things I truly wish I still had.

They stayed with us.

The whole way.

Little by little, the shoreline reappeared.

The waves softened.

The dock came into view.

And somehow…

We made it.

Standing safely back on land, soaked to the bone and shaking from adrenaline, I remember looking back at the water with only one thought:

Those dolphins had just saved us.

I have no explanation for it. Scientists probably do.

The experience left me wondering why dolphins continue helping humans when we’ve done such an astonishing job of proving we don’t always deserve the favor.

Still…

I’m incredibly grateful they haven’t entirely given up on us.

Maybe that’s the lesson I’ve been looking for these past few days.

The headlines will still be there tomorrow.

The outrage will still be there.

The grifters, the politicians, the endless parade of human nonsense aren’t going anywhere.

But neither are the dolphins.

Neither are the moments that remind us the world is still capable of astonishing kindness.

Sometimes, when everything feels like it’s coming apart, the universe sends help in forms you never would have imagined.

Sometimes it looks like a pod of dolphins emerging from a storm.

And sometimes remembering that story is enough to believe, just for a little while longer, that magic hasn’t left us after all.

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A funny side note. The film we were shooting was What the Bleep Do We Know!? We were there filming what visual effects people call a “plate,” the background footage that would later become the scene where Columbus’s ships materialize on the horizon.

Today that shot would probably be generated by AI without anyone ever leaving a studio, or more likely, their living room.

Sigh… what a bummer for humanity.

Yes, I suppose AI can create extraordinary images. It can save money, save time, and eliminate the logistical insanity of flying halfway around the world to capture a few minutes of footage.

But it also eliminates the possibility of everything else.

The tiny overloaded boat.

The captain whose confidence was directly proportional to the size of the tip.

The untouched island.

The storm.

The dolphins.

No one sets out to almost get stranded at sea. I’m certainly not volunteering for that particular adventure again.

But the truth is, some of the most meaningful moments in our lives happen because we leave the house. Because we go somewhere unfamiliar. Because things don’t go according to plan.

We chase the shot and end up finding the story.

I worry that as more of our world becomes generated instead of experienced, we’ll slowly lose those accidental miracles. The ones no algorithm could have predicted because they only happen when real human beings collide with a real world that refuses to follow a script.

Maybe that’s what I’ve been thinking about ever since my flight home.

Not just the dolphins.

But all the things we never would have met if we’d stayed home.

If stories like this remind you that the world is still full of wonder, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps me keep chasing stories, asking inconvenient questions, and occasionally climbing into boats that should absolutely have fewer people in them.

And if you’re more of a “buy the storyteller a coffee” kind of person, my Venmo is always happy to accept contributions toward future adventures that hopefully involve fewer near-death experiences and at least one more pod of dolphins.

Either way, thank you for reading. In a world increasingly generated by algorithms, I’m grateful you’re still choosing stories that were actually lived.