Rives: The Museum of Four in the Morning 

I’ve watched this TED talk so many times. It always impresses me. I’ve shared it with so many friends and loved ones and never gotten back the same sense of awe it sparks in me.

4am is the earliest possible time of the morning that still feels like morning. 3am is more like very late night.

Now that's what I call a love story! Lost love, with love poems, with a poem that comes back later in life, a journey to find the source. Lost love telling him about the mix tape, rediscovering the original poem! Omg, what?! Could not be more real.

Every time I am awake at 4 in the morning, I look up this Ted Talk. It's become a tradition of mine

I'm really happy that Rives is on here again. His 4am talk is one of my favorite TED talks of all time.

I've been coming back to this video every once in a while since it was originally uploaded here and I'm always amazed at this story. Truly makes me marvel at how magical and brilliant the smallest things in life can be.

I'm legitimately jealous. L.D. is so very clever and the fact that Rives was stuck on this for 7 years is just-- I can't even. So good.

the greatest "its on the tip of my tongue but i can't quite put my finger on it" moment IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY.

lol, just randomly clicked on this Ted and glanced up at my clock and it's 4am on the dot. Oh dear XD

Rives is an under-appreciated talent. I love his seamless transition to a more poetry-laced prose toward the end. Absolutely masterful

2020 and its still my favorite Ted talk ever

"...I realize this is just the kind of extravagance I took for granted, even when I was extravagant..." why did these words punch me in the gut

This should be a movie. :o

That was probably the best story I have ever heard. ever.

I loved this! I reminds me of many talks that I've had with my daughter where the nonsensical melds with the coincidental and becomes pure, organic entertainment.

I love how memories work sometimes. How cute that the first time the phrase imprinted on his memory was from a romantic mix-tape made decades ago and referencing that very poem.

that mix tape... the idea... wish I had thought of it. sooo cool. what a treasure.

Brilliant. Makes me smile every time. Thank you, Rives.

This man is the most brilliant poet i have ever seen. I love his piece

Wow. I really enjoyed his journey, to realize that in the end of the video... I feel 4 him, but at the same time it was such a beautiful journey. Where is this residual ~ stained emotion taking him... To somewhere in yesterday.

This is what meticulously self induced insanity looks like.

I just watched this for the fourth time. I am captivated by it. It reaches a place deep within me with such amazing ease and totality.

This must be the most beautiful story ever told.

Wow! It's like watching a novel. Great ending!

I've watched a lot of TED talks, but this is the first time I've ever favorited one. I hope she's single, and I hope they get together. That would be an incredible footnote to his early morning journey.

I think my head is about to explode.

Nearly eight years later and this is still my favorite TED Talk.

Rives's talks are some of my favourite TED talks

Wow, the way things connect--not by coincidence but somehow by fate. This is pretty awesome!~

Rives is just such an amazing storyteller! I keep coming back to this:)

A great story and an even better storyteller.Make sure that you listen to the entire speech. It is "unfreakin canny".

This is the video I go to when I can't sleep at night. This is just the kind of extravagance I took for granted, even when I was extravagant.

Still one of the best stories I've ever watched.

It was all the ripples of a Love that never went away. How amazing. Really felt the ending.

This is so far the most beautiful talk on TED. 💗

Peace Like A River. Such an underrated tune.

Now that is how you tell a story and boy, what a story it was! :O Just wonderful really.

One of the first TED talks I ever saw. Along with how to tie your shoes... LOVE TED

This is my favorite ted talk. I remember watching this while studying english 3 years ago.

4 in the morning popped up in the comic section today. Brought me right back to this beautiful video. :)

I got emotional about his old flame referencing the mixtape and him keeping it and going back to it. Sweet. Tender.

This gets me every time. Chills. And a beautiful answer response to 4 in the morning.

what a great story! My personal note to this is, that i just today woke up at four o´clock in the morning and couldnt sleep and now i find this in my YT subs.

Beautiful! I loved every moment of this talk. The four-in-the-morning serendipity and romance is everything we all dream about.

Really the amazing-ness of this is the end. That human connection that personal detail is what makes us relate and connect with others. Great Great Great!

4 o' clock in the morning reminds me of this quote from a musicians book: “There is a phenomenon that occurs in the minds of many manic depressives when entering into either a manic or a depressive state that nobody claims to understand, but that bipolar's from the far corners of the world can attest to: the consistent waking up at four o’clock in the morning. And when I say at four o’clock, I mean four o’clock on the fucking dot. How many times have I given myself chills, waking up yet again after only two hours of sleep and looking over at the blinking red of a digital alarm clock only to see that number staring back at me? I’ve lost count. And the thing is, you don’t just wake up. You wake up with your mind racing, music churning over and over inside your head, the internal noise, words, pictures, absolutely unbearable, and it is absolutely impossible to go back to sleep.” ― Emilie Autumn, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls

Never made a comment on RU-vid before. But this was too cool. Don't think any RU-vid "poetic" comment or reflection on life could be as intense as the connection Rives just made.

*shoves half open Great Gatsby novel off side of desk*

Interesting way to show how we are all - somehow - connected. Clever way to take us from feeling - where is this is going? - to enjoying cool TV clips, - to a romantic place, - to there it is........the "now I get it moment."

Wow, I am in awe. Great facial expression during the talk. Watched it twice in a row.

Still remember that talk! One of my faves

I just watched this at 4 am because i couldnt sleep and am subscribed to TED talks channel ( didnt look anything up, just scrolled through suggestions) :)

This us just the kind of extravagance that I took for granted, even when I was extravagant. What an amazing journey.

I'm a romantic. As much as anything else like this has brought me to tearful convulsions this brought me there. Wow.

Is it a coincidence that I'm watching this at four in the morning?

I have no idea what is this all about but the way he tells it cool as heck.

RIVES!!! Total bro crush right here. lol

Yes! I totally forgot about Rives

One of the best speaches that I have heard, the world is sea of coincidences

It made my brain happy. TY

I just watched a 14-minute video about a man's obsession with an hour. What has quarantine done to me

Synchronicities. Love it.

Floored. Thank you. Thank you,

This is.... some serious trivia knowledge-fuel. Not sure what else I can use this knowledge for, but it's fascinating, and I definitely do not feel like I wasted these 14 minutes of my life. (Also now I know what sentimental thing I should do for my partner for his birthday. Mixtape of poems. Genius.)

I just woke up.. and am watching this at 4.05 am...interesting..

loved this! Thank you for following the path!

Rives! One of the reasons i have favorite poets.

My favourite TED Talk.

Famous Blue Raincoat - Leonard Cohen "Its four in the morning, the end of december Im writing you now just to see if youre better New york is cold, but I like where Im living Theres music on clinton street all through the evening."

Still one of the best TED talks I've seen :)

How can a tedtalk be so satisfying

i remember him from def poetry slam-"Thank you for giving me voice!!!!!"

I was inadvertently watching this at 4am, without even knowing what I was doing!

thought you would get a kick out of this as 4 am is becoming your time!

I'm getting caught-up on my TEDtalks viewing at 6 am, because I woke up at 4 in the morning, as I often do, wishing that I knew a girl who would make me a multidimensionally encrypted mix tape with a Dadaist title in French.

For my language arts class, I have been trying to find examples, to share with my students, where a person leads his audience to an ending, in an interesting way that ties all the ideas together! Well done!!! I love the nonsense!

aw, this is incredible

Nice talk 14 minutes but kinda nice, I have never had someone I could call at 4 in the morning but what I got or settled for was using it as a measuring stick. Love you mom

Now there’s “4 a.m.” by 2 chainz and and Travis Scott

man so true about the groin injury thing

I'm watching this at 4.50 in the morning....

What a story! Everyone I know who has trouble sleeping wakes up between 3&4 in the morning. When I was very ill, I was at my worst at that time-- clockwork. It IS the bewitching hour. Idk what happens to the environment, to the moon, to the oxygen perhaps, or maybe just maybe to the spiritual forces we cannot see but whatever this time brings doesn't have a peaceful or calming effect.

Connections ... this reminds us that what we perceive is just a fraction, the tip of the ice burg, of the endlessness that connects us all. We are not alone. When feeling empty ... look again. When meeting someone you have nothing in common with ... look again. When feeling like the whole world is against you ... look again. Separation is a man made cage for the mind. Feeling bad is just not seeing enough of the picture.

Rives never ever disappoints.

This would make a better love story than twilight.

Favorite talk to this day. 2021 quarantine gang wya?

When I switched from one AD to another AD I was waking up so many nights at 4 a.m, and it wasn't nice.

To all those who missed the point, it's content that is not made for you. It's for hopeless romantics. They get it.

Rives, another one for you. Yesterday July 13th, on PBS In the "Endeavour " showing, the Detective says "Just after 4 ". I just had to tell you. Enjoyed your youtube very much !

My wife wakes up at 4am to get ready for work.

Rives is just way too cool!

"Much coincidence. Such plot twist. Wow!"-doge, maybe

This is beautiful.

YEAH! this is the best. why isn't anyone listening to Ted's Mom from How i Met Your Mother..."Nothing good happens after 4 a.m."

Watching this at 4AM surely won't help me from getting caught in this insanity trap.

He must have had such a mindgasm when he heard that song lyric at the end. Also im kind of annoyed that this captivated me because I watched this video twice in a row and it was such a beautiful waste of time.

Watching this was a compete water of time

It's 4am and I'm feeling it.

One of Watsky's most recent songs mentions 4:20 a.m. early on in a song ("Right Now"); a near miss... but he made up for it years back with his song "4AM Monday" ^.^

I love how something so arbitrary that we would all skip over in our everyday lives suddenly comes to mean so much to one person.