A short spoken monologue by James Laughlin (YouTube, Aug 3, 2023) reacting to private video footage of Osama bin Laden with one of his children. Laughlin describes unexpected joy, playfulness, and parental encouragement in the footage, and reflects that even notorious individuals may contain a "seed" of love or goodness, though it requires nurturing.
There was some very private video footage of him with one of his kids. And Alastair, I've never seen, like, this love. Like, I just never would have expected it. And there was joy. There was playfulness. There was you could see that this dad, who in this case was Osama bin Laden, just wanted the best for this young boy and was encouraging him to read and celebrating him when he got words right and playing with him and truly creating memories. And to me, that in that moment, it shocked me, because in my mind, I was like, no, he's just a really bad person, and every ounce of his body is bad. And for a moment that I just realized, actually, you mentioned the word seed. There was a seed of love and goodness in even the worst person we could imagine. It's there. But I guess seeds take watering.
