Emotive Mechanics in East Detroit

Yesterday I met with an East Detroit school principal at his school. Few things ground human relationships like concern for the safety of people who have been harmed, and you could see it in his face as he spoke about the number one thing his students ask for help with: safety from violence in and outside of school.

You can read about that in the news or a policy report. Hearing it directly from Detroit youth, or taste gunpowder in the air from a recent shooting, and see it momentarily tug at a grown man's composure takes the experience to a different level.

The issue moves him and his staff, he's doing things to cultivate a culture of empathy and appreciation to help the most "at risk" youth in the school move forward from within and beyond the city. I call that emotive mechanics. We aim to change the way people look and feel about the world with tangible actions, but we're guided by a judicious mix of our own emotions and tools for making sense of the world. In that sense, we're emotive mechanics too.