Why a Raccoon Is My Spirit Animal

how igor ticks

Raccoons are hands-first, puzzle-obsessed and always a little up to something, and so am I. That’s why a raccoon in rainbow glasses and mismatched Crocs stands in for me in every role of my eulogy. I picked him on a whim during a time-off in 2022, and he stuck. Where the raccoon falls short, a smarter bird steps up: the crow.

AI-augmented, roughly 60% AI

I love AI, and I use it on posts like this one partly to get better at using it. The percent is a rough guess: after rounds of prompting, rewriting and editing, it's very hard to say which words came from whom.

Wet paws, busy paws

A raccoon understands the world through its paws: its brain spends more of its sensing power on touch than almost any other animal’s. My paws have two jobs. In the physical world they make smiles and wonder: cards that change color on command, coins passing through a spectator’s hand, balloons, and back in my 30s, juggling fire. That’s my Dealer of Smiles and Wonder role. In the virtual world they build: code, tools, and these days a lot of tinkering with AI.

And raccoons washing their food is an old wives’ tale. They’re not cleaning anything: wetting their paws sharpens their sense of touch before they handle their dinner. I’m not big on hand washing either, so I respect that. I wet my paws every morning before I touch the day: 5am, a gratitude journal, 20 minutes of meditation, then the gym. Those are my Emotionally Healthy Human and Fit Fellow roles.

No latch left unopened

To a raccoon, every latch is an invitation: it fiddles until the thing opens, then remembers how next time. That’s the tinkerer in me, my Technologist role: vim, tmux, a dotfile collection, a vim plugin for OneNote, and more pet projects than I’ll admit to. Puzzles that would annoy other people are the fun part for me.

The raccoon also fails without drama: try, fail, try again. My discipline starts strong and falls off the wagon, so that example matters. I restart the next day without beating myself up.

And sometimes a raccoon skips the puzzle and tips the whole thing over. That’s how I like to explore. My AI journal is mostly me trying everything, having AI show me a field of options, and picking by eye.

Mischief in a mask

The raccoon walks around looking like it’s up to something, and gets away with it. I’d rather be a little ridiculous than a little boring: a silly hat, an $8 TEMU crazy shirt, and a Tesla named Tony that makes fart sounds every time I get a text. The mascot wears mismatched Crocs for a reason.

City slicker, garbage gourmet

The raccoon loves the city and makes a meal out of whatever’s around. I’m a city person and a generalist. As a Mostly Car-Free Spirit, that means walking the kids to school, the subway plus a folding bike, and bus-to-the-airport-elevator adventures that cost nothing. As a generalist, it means magic, balloons, juggling, kettlebells, bikes, code and writing. No single specialty, a lot of roles.

When the raccoon falls short…

One raccoon flaw I share: raccoons raid the trash for easy calories, and my version is short-form video. When real work feels expensive, I reach for a TikTok thought escape. Fair cop.

The rest of the raccoon’s resume, I’ll pass on:

  • Up all night. I’m up at 5am. A raccoon who keeps lark hours.
  • Nuisance. I’d rather leave strangers with a smile than a mess.
  • Absent dad. Raccoon fathers take no part in raising their kits. That’s the opposite of the Family Man I’m trying to be.

That last gap is the big one, and it’s where the crow comes in.

…the crow steps up

The crow doesn’t make a cute mascot, but everywhere the raccoon fails me, especially family and community, the crow is what I aspire to.

  • Family helpers. Young crows stay home for years to help raise their little siblings. When Zach lets a scared Amelia sleep in his bed, that’s a crow family. I want to give that kind of complete attention.
  • Partners for the long haul. Crow couples keep the same home together year after year. That’s Tori, and I’ll keep it Tori-light, as promised.
  • Never forgets a face. Wrong a crow and its whole neighborhood will know your face. I want to remember people that well, and the Relationship Coach in my mortality software exists because I don’t do it naturally.
  • A flock, not a lone forager. Crows gather by the thousands to roost together at night. My flock runs on rhythm: friends I see every week, friends I deliberately make time for every month, and the mentors I keep going back to. Ammon has been my weight-pledge partner for over 30 years (Fit Fellow).
  • Gathers for its dead. Crows gather around a dead crow to learn what killed it. Learning from death to live better is the whole point of writing my own eulogy and building mortality software.
  • Tool maker. The raccoon picks the lock. The crow builds the pick. I want to be the builder: dotfiles, vim plugins, and Larry, my AI life coach.
  • Talks, and means it. A crow’s caws tell the flock how much danger it’s in. Teaching out loud, through my 7 Habits video series and this blog, is my version.

Trash panda, crow heart

So the raccoon stays. He’s the best of how I already am: hands first, curious, a little mischievous, at home in the city, good at a lot of things and great at none, and yes, sometimes digging through the trash for an easy snack. The crow is who I’m trying to grow into: the one who stays for the family, remembers the faces, shows up for the flock and learns from death.

Put that on my eulogy: a raccoon who aspired to crow virtues.