Rotten Apple.

May 02, 2002
I lost my job Wednesday. I was sitting at my desk. Right before lunch I got an email announcing a "mandatory meeting". They called us in and informed us, without any explanation, that this was our last day. They made us sign some papers, and one-by-one they went back to our desks to retrieve our essential personal affects. We never got a chance to say goodbye to anybody.

This event triggered the most surreal chain of events ever. There are too many to recount here and now. I've been a bit numbed by the crumbling of all structure in my life. I've only now been able to write about it. And briefly at that.

The most significant lesson to be learned by said crumbling is the importance of friends and love. They've really come through for me. Both by helping me keep my shit together emotionally, and tangibly. I've got a job interview Monday thanks to Jeremy. And not some shitty survival situation either. An exciting software development position. One where I can put my crazy Java skills to use.

I've been spending a lot of time with Bruce Dye lately. We both got hired and laid off at the same time. He's one of the rare guys that I get along with. Speaking of rare guy friends, Ben took me to a musical, "Sweet Charity", at the Paramount Theatre a couple days ago. Fellini wrote it. T'was really good. It was about a wacky woman's quest for love in the mid 60's. I got dressed up and felt all fancy and cultured and shit.

I'm so lucky to have good friends.

Last week I was about to write this essay about how dumb we are for letting our jobs dictate how we feel about ourselves. That was when I HAD a job. Now I'm in this scary/exciting void of infinite potential. I can be anything now. Now it's a lot harder to answer the question, "Who am I?". You know those Buddhist monks who don't have normal working jobs, who sit up on a mountain and ponder existence and whatnot all day. You know what I bet they say when you ask them who they are? I bet they say, "I'm a Buddhist monk".

And that's unfortunate. They should know better.

As an exercise for the reader, I challenge each of you to really think hard about WHO YOU ARE, outside of any social context. You're not your job, you're not your school, you're not your family either. You're not what you create, who you know, how much money you have, or how many people you have sex with. You're not your gang, you're not your church, you're not your sports team, and you're sure not your website.

So answer the question, when all of the fire-proof doors that protect you from seeing yourself are chained open, when there are no symbols there to hide behind, no groups or vocations to identify with, "WHO AM I?".

Who would you be if you were the sole survivor of nuclear armageddon? And if you say "a cockroach" I'll punch you in the nose.