Who better than American actor Morgan Freeman - with his signature baritone and gravitas - to front a documentary about the larger forces keeping humanity together?
The Story Of Us With Morgan Freeman (Sundays at 10pm, National Geographic - Singtel TV Channel 201, StarHub TV Channel 411) crisscrosses the globe exploring six big ideas: freedom, love, belief, power, war and peace and rebellion.
Freeman acts as an interviewer and presenter in addition to executive-producing the show - a follow-up to his earlier National Geographic series The Story Of God (2016-2017), which sent him on an exploration of religion and faith.
When that series ended, he found himself with questions that still begged to be answered.
"What else besides the divine is in all of us? What else do we have besides the divine that is the binding tissue?" he wondered.
Speaking to reporters at a Los Angeles press event last year, the respected Oscar-winning star of Million Dollar Baby (2004), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Driving Miss Daisy (1989) says it is his inner busybody that loves such projects.
"I can pat myself on the back with the knowledge that I've always been curious - some people call it being nosy," he says.
"But that is probably the driving force behind wanting to do, and loving to do, this kind of material. It puts you face to face with people who are way outside of your life experience."
In one episode, he explores the struggle for freedom across the globe; in another, the fight for peace. He also meets hackers, exiles and others who risk all to change the world.
Among those he meets are Ms Megan Phelps-Roper, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church, the hate group infamous for picketing events with banners such as "Thank God for 9/11" .
Other subjects include Mr Joshua Coombes, the London hairdresser who started giving free haircuts to homeless people and launched the #DoSomethingForNothing campaign.
Their stories reveal humanity in all its stripes, he says. People are "not made from the exact same fabric".
"These stories (and) people are in my own life, weaving a whole other pattern for me to live in and believe in. I find it very exciting."
It helps that Freeman has always had an adventurous streak himself.
"I fly, I sail, I'm a horseman. I like sort of seeing myself as a soldier of fortune without being one.
"One of the greatest pleasures of my life is sailing into a harbour somewhere by myself and having people marvel at how I control my boat," says the actor, who has been married twice and has four adult children.
He also relishes how different presenting these documentary series is from acting, the latter offering a "completely different set of rules to live by".
"In film, I just needed to belong. My film career was predicated on being able to see me.
"Now, what I'm getting the most joy out of is meeting all of these different people, sitting down and having a one-on-one conversation with them, and realising, gee, I just talked with someone from the other side of the world and they are saying pretty much the same thing. They are just using a different language."
The Story Of Us also offers a somewhat hopeful message - if it can penetrate the cynicism and jadedness of some in the audience today.
"There's always going to be a contingent - a small one albeit - who will roll their eyes at do-gooders, tree-huggers, people who for one reason or another think differently, have a higher aspiration.
"When people get disillusioned, they get fearful for their own future. This is happening in a lot of places in the world today and particularly with the innovations and technology that are moving jobs away from humans.
"These things create fear and fear creates tension, and tension creates friction and there you have it."
But someone like Mr Coombes, the hairdresser-turned-philanthropist, is so inspiring that his story may pierce through the gloom.
"He's out there trying to singlehandedly change people's ideas about life itself. His motto - "Do something for nothing" - reminds me so much of (late South African leader) Nelson Mandela.
"Your task in life is probably to do as much as you can for others for nothing."
• The Story Of Us With Morgan Freeman airs on Sundays, 10pm on National Geographic (Singtel TV Channel 201 and StarHub TV Channel 411).
