Hey Team,

I’m on a train on the way to New York right now. Eventually, after sitting in an airport for hours on end I’ll be on my way to Sacramento to see my Best Friend get married. Needless to say it’s giving me a lot of downtime to think. And the way said thoughts are rolling around expect this story to be both cheesy and rambling…however, I AM easily distracted so for all I know I’ll get six lines in and start talking about some shiny object I saw.

Speaking of shiny objects, the family across the aisle from me has a MacBook Pro also…except it’s newer than Charley. I hope he doesn’t get jealous. I don’t know that you could actually call it SHINIER than Charley but…hmm…I forgot what I was going to write about.

[reboot]

As a result of using Boston as an impromptu base of operations over the last week, making several trips out and back, I made quite a few friends in “The Walking City.” And I have to say; it made it surprisingly difficult to leave. Although I didn’t “technically” know any of these people for very long they were still so generous and kind that it literally made me proud.

“Proud? Brett, you already stopped making sense again. That was fast even for you.”

I say, “Come on kids, try and keep up.”

I would happily consider myself a Patriot. But it’s a sad fact that the term has been co-opted and become synonymous with “Pro-War” when it should mean something more along the lines of “I believe in the people of this country and all that we are capable of doing when we treat each other well and work together.” (Okay, yes, that does sound cheesy. But be fair. I warned you.) My point is this: in our day-to-day lives we don’t spend enough time interacting with new people. We find a comfort zone and instead of challenging ourselves to find good people and reciprocate their kindness we allow the local news to tell us about all the terrible people out there and scare us deeper into our barricaded rabbit holes of unreality.

Is it really going to hurt to think the best of people? When the anchorwoman tells you about the mugging downtown, is that really justification to bar your windows and ignore your neighbors? There are a lot of incredible people out there: Mike, Aaron, George, Eli, Jill, Dan and nearly everyone else I’ve met in the last two weeks have been teaching me that. I like to think I’m a fast learner and since you all trust me, why not just take my word for it and believe that people are generally good.

It’s not like I had to introduce myself to hundreds of thousands of awful human beings to cull these few either. I’ve literally only been snubbed by ONE person in the last two weeks. Everyone else has been at LEAST on par with me in the world of good people and although that’s not necessarily saying a LOT it is saying something. In fact it’s saying more than enough to make me proud. Proud to be even a small part of this society.

Shoot. I don’t even have enough cheese left to make a sandwich now.

I must be done.

Brett.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 3:20 pm.