Dudes Who Lunch, or What I Learned About My Animal Nature

In the four plus weeks that I have been unemployed, I have be inducted into a special group of fellows, one that you probably have not heard of, but may gain currency in the weeks or months to come. An elite group, possessed of a certain elan, or ‘joie de vivre’ if you will. Well, maybe not that ‘joie’ when it comes to ‘vivre’, but spirited nonetheless. I will call this group ‘Dudes Who Lunch’.

I chose this name for two reasons:
1) We are all dudes.
2) We had lunch.

Brilliant, no? I thought so. There are four dudes in this group, counting myself. I have known one of them since 1989, another since 1997 and the third since 2007. I have worked with all of them for varying lengths of time and at different architecture firms since graduation back in 1989. One of them is the closest thing I ever had to a mentor, and I have no qualms calling all of them friends, even if I haven’t been the best in keeping up my end of the bargain. Upon the event of my lay off, I have contacted each in turn for the purpose of rekindling friendships, scouting out opportunities and getting career advice. To that end, I have had lunch with all three over the course of the last few weeks. To my surprise and deep gratitude, each of these fine fellows bought me lunch. To a chowhound like me, that is of no small importance. Having someone buy me lunch is like finding money in the pocket of a jacket you hadn’t worn in a while, or maybe a kiss on the cheek from a supermodel: unexpected, undeserved but so very cool.

The most important part of these free lunches was not the food. It was their generosity with their money, time and advice. Each of these guys gave up a perfectly good lunch hour of their own to spend it listening to whine and ask questions and generally kvetch about my poor lot in life. For those of you who have spent any amount of time around me, you are probably saying to yourself, “Why didn’t he buy THEM lunch?”. And I wouldn’t dispute that too much.

I learned a lot about myself, how others perceive me, and what might suit me best should I decide to continue a career as an architect and project manager. One of the most insightful bits of advice I heard was something like this (paraphrased):

Dogs will go anywhere, mostly do anything they are told to do and won’t ask a lot of questions. Dogs are just happy to be surrounded by other dogs. Dogs are embarrassed when scolded. Dogs are happy about most things, whether they knew about it or not. Dogs are happy to go wherever their masters go.

Cats do not go for walks on a leash. Cats do not have masters, they have people who share a house with them. Cats like to know everything about their environments. Cats like to observe without necessarily being seen. Cats do not do anything they did not mean to do. And if they do something they didn’t mean to do, they act as if they meant to do it.

Kevin, you are a cat.

Shit. Guess who has been wrong all these years.

I was led to believe I was a dog, and I bought it. I modeled my life goals as if I were a dog. I did what I was told, I tried to be a part of the pack, I sniffed a few butts. I even agreed to have a collar and leash, and it never did fit very well. Now, all of this worked, for a while. I even felt at times that I was indeed a dog, that this really wasn’t so bad. Most major life situations, and virtually all my career decisions, were influenced by or predicated on me being a dog. Over time, the dissonance between what I am and what I thought was created stress cracks, a near lethal build up of friction manifesting as anger and anxiety and dislocation, the origins of which I failed to comprehend. The problem is now painfully obvious: I acted on a dog nature that I did not possess.

If I may wax poetic: I am not a retriever, I am a jaguar. Or at least, in the jungle of my mind, that is how I am beginning to see myself. I have to, if I want to survive in this, the next chapter of my life. Perhaps like a shaman I can shed my skin, dissolve into the earth and resurface wherever in the world I so choose.

Night is falling. I step out of the puddle of flaccid fur and skin around my feet. I still have four legs. I still have strong jaws and teeth. But my claws are longer and sharper. My vision is keener, my coat is sleeker, the muscles different. Flexing and stretching, I breathe deep of the thick, wet air. Everything smells so fascinating. The jungle is alive with possibility, and I realize with a sense of relief that the jaguar-me is hungry. And I haven’t been hungry in years.


A PLEASANT BIT OF YARDWORK

I have been blessed in recent days with a whole new contingent of followers on this blog, an occurrence which continues to astonish, amaze and delight me. I have also received an amazing number of comments lately, which is also contributing to an increase in my hat size. (Don’t worry, a few minutes around Wee Lass will take care of that.) One post in particular, “Blood Of My Blood”, has attracted the most comments of anything I have done to date. Ordinarily, I have been responding to comments on a one to one basis, but I have not been able to do that in this particular case. (If I haven’t gotten back to some of you on this or any other posts, please know I am not ignoring you) There are two main reasons:

1) Time constraints – between the blog, job hunting and domestic maintenance I’m running out of hours in the day.
2) Every time I open the comments to respond, I end up rereading the post. And then I lose my shit and have to calm down again.

Thank you, everyone, who left such amazing comments and encouragement. The things you said and the thoughts you shared were truly, truly heartwarming (and had me reaching for the hankies!) and gave me some serious food for thought regarding the direction I should go. Oh, and Smarty Pants Rants? I am indeed a dude; two swift punches to the groin (gasp!) confirmed what I have long suspected.

In addition, I have received an unexpected award! On yesterday’s post, the lovely Belle nominated me for a Hoy award, for “The Best Profile Picture Award”: (and the blog aint' bad):

I am honored and flattered that she took the time to suss me out, and get me linked to her blog. Please do drop in on her and say hello. There are rules to go along with this, as usual, but I have a terrible time keeping up with that sort of thing. Especially when I am tired and pressed for time. I will attempt to fulfill some later, perhaps tomorrow.

I am flattered and happy that so many folks have decided to join me in running through the lawn sprinkler of my mind. I’ll keep the water running!