Bass thrummed through my bones as I crouched in the dark. Behind stacks of speakers, I was a VJ for raves in Chicago, something my parents never figured out when I'd come home at dawn, hair reeking of smoke, JNCO jeans tattered and damp with fog juice. This was the early 2000s, when empty buildings became something else entirely. I'd run loops of found footage: low-res aerobics instructors, nature documentaries, static bursts from old rental tapes through daisy-chained VCRs. The bass rattled loose ceiling dust as colors and shapes flashed across cracked walls.

The real moments happened early, before the crowds. Paul Johnson stuck at the bottom of a badly built plywood ramp, everyone scrambling to help a Chicago house legend in a wheelchair who knew how to get down but couldn't get up, something the trust fund kid turned promoter forgot when securing the venue. I adjusted projectors through the fog, wondering how anyone could book a house music hero without knowing he created dance floor magic while in a wheelchair.

Finding your people back then was never easy. You followed a trail, hoping it would lead somewhere.

A number passed at last week's party led to a hotline with directions, led to a warehouse door. Street sounds swirled through my mind as I wandered empty blocks, like clicking through forums in the dark, when 'hyperlink' still meant something, that rush of not knowing if the next click would drop you into a stranger's obsession or if the next warehouse door would hit you with Phantom 45's drum and bass rattling your chest cavity at 173 BPM. You'd find yourself alone in bulletin boards and empty rooms until suddenly, you weren't.

Every morning, I'd wrap up those RCA cables soaked in fog juice, pack away the gear, and know we'd built something real, even if it was temporary.

Now I scroll at midnight, ears still ringing from those nights behind the projectors. Three kids sleep down the hall while I pull down to refresh, chasing echoes of those nights piecing together visuals from old tapes.

Some nights, I think about that ramp, the one the promoter couldn't be bothered to make right, and wonder if we've just traded him for tech bros designing systems that keep us stuck at the bottom too.

The inside of many MRI machines is adorned with intricate patterns. I discovered this detail late one morning in 2020 — I lay inside one, waiting for the scan that would confirm what we already feared.

Meanwhile at home, my wife Lauren was navigating her own form of distraction... a pandemic with three kids, a four-month-old who wouldn't sleep, and a partner being diagnosed with cancer.

Here I was, worlds apart from them, trapped in a tube, unable to help, trying to understand what was going on around me. I scanned the patterns as the magnet pulsed with its strange, mechanical rhythm. Gripping the emergency signal in my hand, surrounded by the relentless grinding of gears, earplugs jammed deep inside my ears, shapes began to appear.

Seahorses, dolphins, birds, creatures - all moving through an abstract illustration of continuous lines.

Experience designers label these elements "positive distractions" in their blueprints and behavioral studies. But having been the one lying there, searching for anything to hold onto in moments when I felt completely untethered, I know how absurd that label is.

They're not distractions.

When you're confined to the size of a medical tube, you don't need the mind to wander. In that moment, your mind and soul are looking for so much more. You're searching for proof that your world extends beyond the forced stillness.

I found more in the half-crescent shapes that echoed Luna's name - my daughter, four months old, named after the moon. In those curves and shadows, I felt her presence.

Positive? Absolutely.
A distraction? Far from it.

I'm still searching for the right word to replace "positive distractions" in my design vocabulary. Maybe one day it will emerge from the maze of patterns, just like those shapes did. For now, I just know they're something far more essential - they're the threads that make us feel like we belong to what matters most... even in our smallest spaces.

A closing note: The image accompanying this article is an AI-generated interpretation of those patterns I saw in 2020. And the best part? I am cancer free today. yay science!

When working on the launch of the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas Hotel in 2010, their tagline was "just the right amount of wrong." We spent many days and nights trying to turn that slogan into something guests could feel. We got it right some days, sometimes we struggled.

Vegas loses its appeal after many trips from ORD to LAS. Yet, I recall one night after trying to center myself in the chaos, I walked along the strip to clear my head. That's when I saw them - somewhere between the fake Eiffel Tower and whatever-the-hell they're calling that new casino. Not the showgirls or club promoters, but the Elmos. Three AM warriors in matted fur, meeting the most basic human need: making people feel like they belong somewhere, even if that place is the radiating heat of concrete in the dead of night.

Nobody in Vegas wants the sanitized version of anything. The strip Elmos know this. They're not here to preserve children's television magic. They're here because, like everyone else still standing, they know the truth. People aren't looking for perfection, they're looking for their people. What you're paying for isn't a photo with a character. It's proof that everything turned sideways in all the right ways. You have proof that you found your tribe under the dizzying artificial lights, arms around a questionably hygienic costume, grinning like you finally got what Vegas is about.

We spent many hours trying to artfully represent Cosmopolitan's own version belonging in that hotel. But these sidewalk hustlers in torn fur suits cracked the code. They never speak, but if they did, I bet they'd tell you what the real Elmo always knew: "Elmo loves you just the way you are." Even at 3am. Especially at 3am. Maybe that's what "just the right amount of wrong" meant all along.

Image Credit: The image at the top of this post is not mine. I found it doing a quick google search since I never took a picture with The Strip Elmos. Thanks Anne Bartlett-Bragg for uploading it to Flickr

Fear is the ultimate helicopter parent to your creative mind.

"Better not try that new approach, stick to what's safe."

"Someone else already did it better."

"You're not ready for this kind of project."

"What if everyone hates it?"

Fear is not constructive feedback, both for you and for those who feel the wrath of its feedback loop. It's the polar opposite of creative love.

When love for creativity opens doors, fear locks them behind a deadbolt and throws away the key. Creative love nurtures talent, while fear ensures creative submission. They're not just different approaches, they're opposing forces.

Fear hovers above all.
Love of creativity encourages all to play.