Willow’s soul song is “Waiting on the World to Change,” by John Mayer.
In my experience, people tend to have strong opinions about this song. It was hailed for quite some time as an inspirational / hopeful anthem. And then one day, people suddenly paid attention to the lyrics and there was a lot of chatter about how “we shouldn’t wait for the world to change. We should become that change!”
(I do agree with that statement, by the way.)
I’m not really here to defend the song – only to explain why it’s perfect for Willow. To me, the song is about feeling helpless in a scary world, but also feeling hopeful for the future.
That’s Willow.
Before Unitime, he felt absolutely powerless. He was the kind of guy who refused to watch the news because it depressed him too much. The only way he could deal with the current state of the world was to believe with every fiber of his being that it was going to get better someday.
He wasn’t ‘waiting for the world the change’ in the sense of ‘Gee, I really hope it gets better.’ He absolutely trusted that the world was going to change, and he just needed to hold on until that point.
The line in the song that speaks most directly to Willow’s personality is:
“One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we’re still waiting, waiting
Waiting on the world to change”
It’s the most optimistic line in the song, in my opinion, and Willow truly is an optimistic guy. He doesn’t seem it sometimes since he’s prone to anxiety / depression and is generally unsatisfied with the bleak state of humanity. But beneath all of that, he has an unshakable trust in the inherent goodness of the world, and thinks that one day something will happen to bring that goodness forward.
If you’re curious
about Willow, you can
find his full book here.