Ten days ago on 11 November 2021 I welcomed baby Bunty the Cocker Spaniel into the family. Rocket the tomcat is adjusting (with grumpy expressions and lots of nose swatting) and we are going well. For people who live alone by choice, pets are family. Bunty is my new little girl. Don’t be fooled by the wide angle lens: she is smaller than a loaf of bread.
I have taken up residence in uncertainty.
I am a trained technical and creative professional with more than twenty years of experience. The discipline doesn’t matter really, but my field of choice is architectural consulting.
I am trained to banish uncertainty. I do this mostly on behalf of others, for money.
The professional banishment of uncertainty is a Sisyphean labour - it is never-ending. It is also never concluded or resolved absolutely. Instead of this, it is a repetitive, reflexive practice, one that is perpetually anticipating and swiftly reacting to constantly changing circumstances.
We sell the banishment of uncertainty. It is profitable to do so.
This is the cornerstone of our business and central to the story of our competence. Our clients don’t rely on us primarily to provide ‘design’. This is important but secondary.
They rely on us to eliminate risk. The engine of risk is uncertainty.
Uncertainty is an immense domain and of necessity it is ill-defined in its centre and edges. It exists in the eye of the examiner. To our clients almost everything is uncertain except what they want, or need, or both. We are paid to be one, or perhaps two, steps ahead of them. Within the field of our experience, there are less uncertainties, and our clients benefit from this.
But this is an important point: we are only one or two steps ahead. Less is uncertain, it is true - but much remains indeterminate regardless of our experience and insight.
This keeps the work interesting. But that’s enough of the day job.
Today I am on my own time.
When on my own time, the time I spend leading my personal creative life, I take up residence in uncertainty.
In this vast realm I am free from the need for my activities to secure financial reward. The day job pays the bills. Here, I am unencumbered and unrestrained. I can move to any point of the compass at will - it simply doesn’t matter.
I do not need to anticipate, manage, manipulate or control risk of any kind. I am free to unknow.
Perhaps most significantly I am free to set aside all the techniques and methods I have learnt, without consequence. Almost all of these tools are painstakingly calibrated to banish, or at least manage, uncertainty. Here, now, I can abandon them all, and embrace the consequences.
I am free to surrender entirely to a personal ignorance. A panoramic, sweeping vista of uncertainty I am not seeking to resolve.
I am free to declare this without fear of repercussions. And I do so now.
Today, I unknow.
Let’s see what happens.
Bunty? Maybe. Siblings, certainly.
I adore dogs of all shapes and sizes.
My beloved dog Lucy went to heaven two months ago. My cat, who is called Baby Rocket, and I have been living without a dog in the apartment for that long.
In two weeks I am bringing home a new member of the family, a baby Cocker Spaniel whose name will be Bunty. Bunty Baumgart. She was born with a clutch of siblings on 15 September 2021 and is apparently happy and healthy.
I can’t wait to meet her.
I have already seen her in photographs. But I have only seen her as one of a furry crowd, photographs like the one above and blurry videos that show wiggling piles of tan puppies. I don’t know which one she actually is. They look like little furry jellybeans. Adorable.
It will be very nice to have a dog in the house again. I like being followed from room to room. I have been surviving vicariously on visits to a friend’s apartment to play with his foster greyhound.
The apartment feels quite empty without a dog. The cat has been lonely, but he has also been getting a little too big for his furry boots.
Time to take him down a notch.
Bring on Baby Bunty and all the enthusiasm a fresh-pawed, furry-snouted puppy can muster.