A quick story that the above video reminded me of.

We filmed the interviews for HORROR NOIRE in the spring of 2018, four months after BLACK PANTHER was released. If you've seen the doc, you know the nature of the interviews was conversational and free-flowing.

These conversations would organically go to different places. To a one, at some point in those interviews, every conversation turned to BLACK PANTHER. Didn’t matter who was talking. The young women filmmakers. The 80s and 90s horror icons. The 70- year-old director of BLACULA.

Every interview subject mentioned it - how much they loved it, what it meant to them. Days or weeks apart, their faces shared a very specific ELATION as they talked about the film.

The joy was palpable. It was clear that they'd all been waiting their entire lives for that movie.

Of course, we were making a horror doc, so these moments celebrating BLACK PANTHER didn't make it into the finished film. But the effect, day after day of seeing our guests excitedly bring it up to one another, was cumulative, emotional and unforgettable.

I enjoyed BLACK PANTHER a lot; I deeply *loved* what it meant to these folks. I felt fortunate to have it so vividly contextualized by these passionate artists and storytellers. I still do. It was an experience of pure sympathetic joy - what my Buddhist friends would call Mudita.

I cannot fathom what this loss must feel like to the people so uplifted by Boseman’s work. But I was privileged to experience this absolute human mosaic of how much he and his work meant to so many. My thoughts are with them, and with Boseman’s family.

“I can’t believe he did all that while fighting the fight he did.”

I think we can’t believe it because we can’t imagine ourselves being that strong in his place. And we need to imagine ourselves better before we can be better.

Inspiration is not a metric. I see so many people struggling right now. We all do what we can. But the end of Boseman’s story might be telling us that what we CAN do is probably more than we think.

Or maybe the end of Boseman’s story is that even when the outcome is known, keep going. The good that can come of you simply not giving up can’t be quantified.

As illustrated here.

It’s never been more tempting to throw up our hands. And it’s never been more important that we don’t. We need to keep going. That’s what I’m going to think about today. #RIPChadwickBoseman