Boston On My Mind

I love this image so much. via Quipsologies

I feel the need to take a quick time out from design posts to express how heartbroken I am over the tragic events in Boston yesterday. The vast majority of my friends and family live in and around Boston, so for me, this hit way too close too home. And even though I’ve lived in New York City for nearly a decade, Boston will always be my original hometown; a place where I grew up, made countless memories and visit often. Thankfully everyone I know personally is OK, but several friends had close calls, so I feel incredibly lucky and grateful today that we are all safe and sound.

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I also wanted to share this piece of writing that Patton Oswalt posted yesterday. It’s so well said, and contains a message that I definitely need to remind myself of from time to time, if not on a daily basis.

Boston. Fucking horrible. 

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, “Well, I’ve had it with humanity.”

But I was wrong. I don’t know what’s going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths. 

But here’s what I DO know. If it’s one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we’re lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they’re pointed towards darkness. 

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago. 

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, “The good outnumber you, and we always will.”