Death Weighs on Seattle

Seattle's been mourning over the tragic loss of our community members. It's difficult to deal with, and the grief has shaken the city. 

The only way I know how to deal with these things is with dialogue. And yes, you guessed it—this post is my platform.

First off, deep sympathies to the friends and families.

[Pause]

If we want to keep Seattle the safe, beautiful city we admire, we can't ignore violent undercurrents.

Questions come to mind: What do we know? What can we learn? And how do we prevent this? What can we do as a community to prevent meaningless hatred?

Crisis is the time to unite and reflect. It's hard when we have complex emotions to deal with, but it's also when it's most dire. It's our opportunity to uncover wisdom. 

As Deputy Police Chief Nick Metz told reporters about Cafe Racer, "In my almost 30 years in this department, I've never seen anything more horrifying and callous and cold. We as a police department, we as a city, we as a community really need to make sure that we are doing everything possible to never allow anything like this to happen again."

I don't have a solution, but I will say this: these events are showing us humanity's dark side. And it's my belief system that there's a ying to that yang.

To spread empathy.

What do I mean by empathy? Caring. As in actually caring.

Caring comes from within, it means relating to people–to one, a few and to all. It also might mean understanding that society's good is up to each individual. It could mean understanding that one's own wants can be transcended for a greater principle. 

And that one person can ultimately benefit all.

If we all can teach that to our children, and if that actually sunk in, would there still be violence over a material possessions? Or violence from fits of rage? Probably, but even the smallest snowflake could snowball.

Realism and optimisim can meet halfway. Let's honor of the victims and their families by passing along peace and kindess.