Monday 6 October 2008

Many more days having passed I am still waiting for certain and unwavering proof that I am not a sex-offender. As a result I still haven't made any money. In an attempt, or rather many attempts, to remedy this I have applied in the interim period for, to give a conservative estimate, 20 jobs - thus far, again, to no avail.

This continual failure brings me nicely to a recent revelation. On many occassions recently, and indeed pre-recently, I have sat in rooms and listened to some(kind of) authority figure telling me and my cohort how well we have done to get into that room. This affirmation is generally followed by a statement of the form:

'for every one of you x-many others were rejected'.

- I am not bragging here, please, even if you find the above unpalatably self-gratifying read on -

This statement always makes me think about all the other rooms that I have tried to enter in which no doubt many of the xs are currently sitting listening to the same. I hope that they are feeling as arbitrarily selected as I am (it helps soften the pain of my perpetual state of rejection) because, in all honesty, I am in that room more through good fortune than anything else - and I hope that they are too. I say this (about chance) really because it seems like at most points of my life this statement can be made.

Indeed, it would be most meaningful - in terms of scale - if the Doctor who helped to bring me into this world interrupted my tears to inform me that I had done well to be born into the white british middle-class; telling me that every one of me hundreds of other babies were being born in my minute (thousands that hour and millions that year) without that crucial advantage.

So, in short, I am lucky to be me, sometimes lucky to be where I am and sometimes some other people are more lucky than me.

1 comment:

Tom Marshall said...

Ah now that is a bit spooky!
I was thinking just the other day (I don't make a habit of it... but occasionally...

The only place you ever are is "here" and the only time you can enjoy is "now". So there is no point in feeling shadowed by what is past, or feeling worried by the future. Enjoy who you are, who you are with and what you are doing, because there isn't actually anything else.