Read write up about Soulpancake below the Ghion Cast YouTube clip to find out why this show is amazing!

We are not meant to be alone; humans are meant to be connected to others and live in a community of neighbors. There is a proverb that reads “woe to one who is alone for there will be no one around to pick him up when he falls”. Truer words have never been spoken; when we saunter alone, our burdens are multiplied and sorrows turn into deep-seeded dejection. The fighting spirit is easily broken when we are shrouded in solitude as the will to endure the rigors of life is sapped when we are by ourselves.

During World War II, American and British prisoners of war retained their moxie and kept giving their German captors headaches as they insisted on trying to escape and kept partaking in mischief as a means of joining the war effort even as they found themselves jailed behind barbed fences. War planners took note of this and realized that soldiers are not easily broken as long as they reside in communities and retain a bond with their brothers in arm. This is when the practice of isolating POWs began and has now cruelly used in some prisons; it was a form of psychological warfare and an act of torture almost as malicious as sleep deprivation. Soldiers who endured four years of beatings and abuse during WWII were broken instantly in future wars when they were removed from others and impounded in solitary confinement.

I bet you will find it odd that I’m leading in with these two paragraphs in order to introduce a show on YouTube which was conceived by a former cast member of NBC’s “the Office“. SoulPancake was founded by actor Rainn Wilson, Joshua Homnick and Devon Gundry in 2008. It is hard to actually describe what SoulPancake is all about; it’s a bit of this and that and everything else. In a way, SoulPancake is what I hope Ghion Journal becomes. At once a multimedia company and a conveyor of the human experience; SouPancake’s aim is to connect the dots of people and present a multi-dimensional look at the complexities of life. SoulPancake is books, SoulPancake is a creative agency that uncovers talent, and SoulPancake is content where original shows and videos can be found on TV and YouTube.

I have to give credit where credit is due, it was a friend Samri who told me about the SoulPancake channel on YouTube and suggested I watch it and perhaps think about writing about it. Two nights ago, I decided to do just that as I ventured onto YouTube to check out my Samri’s recommendation. When I typed in “SoulPancake”, a litany of videos popped up and I was confronted with having to choose one videos among a sea of selections. All the sudden, one in particular caught my eyes as I decided to watch the SoulPancake show about blind dates and judging a book by its cover. I know a few things about how books are are judged based on the superfluous for I sure know how to make people do double takes when I invert assumptions as I engage folk in dailogues that they were not expecting.

It was with this experience of myself being subjected to judgments and assumptions that I watched the SoulPancake video on the same topic with great interest. The video featured two people meeting for the first time in front of the camera in what was billed as “first date”. It was fascinating watching two people; a CEO of a company dressed down with a tee, and an assistant event coordinator, as they sat across each other and tried to deconstruct one another. From the outset, the video dove into the treacherous waters of stereotypes and presumptions we all make about others. I do not want to ruin the video for you as I will let you watch the clip for yourself, the same clip can be found at the bottom of this article below the Ghion Cast clip in this article. Let’s just say the blind date took interesting turns as two people tried to figure out if the other person was worth the investment to know beyond their first meeting.

The fascinating thing about the clip was not so much the salacious aspects of “will he or won’t she”; trust me when I tell you, this is not some sort of “Housewives of Hollywood”. What drew me was seeing two people trying to navigate the waters of unfamiliarity and trying to form some sort of basis for understanding each other. I felt like I was a fly on the wall watching Brienna and Simon getting to know each other. It was a look into the human psyche and how we all have preconceived notions about others based on external factors. If I had a dime for each time I heard women say that you can tell a lot about a man based on his shoes or heard men say you can tell a lot about a woman based on her laughter I’d be a millionaire by now. The truth is that they only way we get to know others is based on time invested for all else is nothing but guesses and shots in the dark.

The SoulPancake video clip revealed this aspect of humanity through both laughter and touching moments. I have to give Samri full credit, this was an amazing clip that delved into the ways we as humans form opinions of others and how we get to know others based on trial and error. Ironic how a comedian who once was a weekly staple on the Office is now a driving force behind a company that has layers of depth. But it’s far for the course; comedians might be judged as being all about jokes but most of the time what comedians present are satires of human behavior. One cannot be a satirist nor a comedian without first knowing the fundamental aspects of human emotions; this is why comedians are able to make us laugh—they are just turning our pains into a moment to giggle through jokes.

This is why I love SoulPancake so; the geniuses behind the company and the creative minds behind the content are able to take the every day aspects of life and present them in ways that makes us think. The simple is turned into the complex and then back to simplicity—sagacity given by way of plain spoken language we can all understand. We live in times of rank individualism and naked pursuits of self-actualization as everybody is on a quest to accomplish much and consume even more. In the process, more and more bodies keep waffling in despair and loneliness for there is no profit to be made by individualism alone. It takes human connections to find meaning and it takes a community to find happiness.

A shout out to the crew at SoulPancake; thank you for taking the mundane and presenting it in ways that is at once complex and yet profoundly simple to understand. You have found a fan in me for there are few things these days that actually tickle the mind and reaches people on an intellectual and emotional level. Instead of catering to the individual whims of people, you speak of our togetherness in ways that is at once soaring and easily understood. Instead of giving us the woe of fatuity, you instead original production that treats your viewers like adults. Thank you as well to Samri for suggesting SoulPancake. Goes to show I guess, great treasures are uncovered when we pass ideas to one another—Soulpancake is better than being a lonely biscuit. #SoulPancakeGhion

Check out breakdown of Soulpancake that I did as part of #GhionCast below and watch the Soulpancake clip that instantly got me hooked below this video. If you like this article and love Soulpancake and what they stand for, share this article on social media using #SoulPancakeGhion

Tags: Devon Gundry, Ghion Cast, Ghion Journal, GhionCast, Joshua Homnick, Oprah, Oprah Network, Oprah Winfrey, Own, Rainn Wilson, Soulpancake, SoulPancake: Chewing Life's Big Questions, Teodrose Fikre, the office