I had my fifth ‘mentoring’ session at the Jobcentre yesterday. The first one was back on March 19th.
At my previous appointment, two weeks ago, my mentor had been delving into ambition in a general sense. He told me he felt I was very intelligent and had a lot to offer (although, exactly what, he couldn’t specify). At one point he said, ‘Maybe you’d just like to meet Mr. Right, get married and have babies.’ (He added, ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’) This comment amused me, really, and yet it did have something—I really don’t think I am all that ambitious per se. I’ve only genuinely realised that in the last couple of years.
So, yesterday, after repeating the nebulous concept that I have a lot to offer, he got into deeper territory, i.e. the meaning of life and existence. I was partly responsible for this; I was projecting a cynical, disinterested attitude, and I guess he wanted to dig deeper.
I expressed some genuine beliefs—I do believe our (as in the Human Race’s) basic purpose is simply to exist and procreate, and I do believe that almost everything about society and life as we know it is essentially an artificial construction. Anyone with a brain knows this. But I don’t necessarily see it negatively… or not totally negatively, at least. I prefer not to think about this stuff when my mood is bad. Yesterday I certainly was in a fairly bad mood, but I was goaded into it and I was incredibly negative about more or less everything.
So there’s mixed feelings about the whole thing. I thought these sessions were supposed to have a positive effect, if anything. I don’t expect anything positive, really, but I certainly don’t expect to leave the place feeling depressed either! Okay, I was depressed already. But I felt a lot worse for the rest of the day. The issue of how we’re all a bunch of over-evolved monkeys who think we’re more important than we really are and think we have more purpose than we really do… well, yeah, that’s true, but thinking about it won’t lift my mood.
So I’m not going to think about it. Much.