The Odyssey & the Ecstasy- Existentialism & the Zen of Self-Mentorship

Genesis… of a nemesis? A sampling from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel  

This week’s Business Communication blog prompt: “Mentoring-Do you have a mentor? What should you look for in a mentor?”

Instead of giving the short answer, (which, I have a sneaking suspicion is “no”) and facing an abysmal grade as a result, I’d like to protract my answer by exploring the word “Mentor”. Who knows? The protraction might change my answer.

As a noun, mentor is defined as: “a wise and trusted counselor or teacher, an influential senior sponsor or supporter”.  The word comes from a proper name in ancient Greece, a character in Homer’s Iliad. Mentor was entrusted to advise the son of Odysseus in his father’s absence. So there’s a kind of parental vibe about mentor. I had a dance teacher, whom I could consider a personal mentor, in an almost spiritual kind of way. But, I don’t think that’s what the assignment is asking. I am supposing what I’m being asked about is a professional mentor.

I don’t know anyone who does what I want to do professionally.  I have heroes and role models, but mentors seem to have hands-on, personal, technical advisory involvement with their mentorees.  I get regular professional and technical advice from my peers, however and their sterling tutelage I wish I could pay for. But my peers are the opposite of a mentor by definition.

In answering this question I now realize that I’m flying blind, as it were, plunging head long into at sea of the unknown.  My major, my focus and my career aspirations are the products of hope. Elusive hope. Not faith in a mentor. Not yet anyway…  

But, do I need one? Being without the explicit direction of an expert sounds like freedom to me. But then again, the freedom to act has the tendency to produce the fear of failure: angst or dread, as they call it. Kierkegaard figured, in the absence of the absolute control of a creator we would fear letting that creator down, risking hellfire.  Contemporary Existentialist thought maintains that we as individuals are uniquely responsible for the meaning in our lives, the looming fear being our own disappointment. 

So, existentially speaking, we’re all flying blind. Whether you’re in an Iliad phase, journeying forth to make your mark on the world or an Odyssey phase, finding your way home; we’re all on our own. So I guess I don’t feel so left out.  Michelangelo had one. But with a rival like DaVinci, you’d need one... and then some; but, I’m not shooting that high.   

I am elated with the prospect of learning alongside my friends, forging our way ahead into respective creative fields, personal battles of Troy, as uniquely as possible with or without overt guidance.

Zen master Linji said, “If you meet the Buddha, kill him.” The idea here is that a perfected teacher outside your self is illusory and should not only be disregarded but, also destroyed. So I will continue to look inside myself and to the good company I have placed myself in for guidance. And what can I say? I just won't settle for less than perfection.