Law School Is Over

Three years of classes and exams and near constant anxiety expired today.

A great burden has lifted.

It will take some time to truly recover.

Gum in Urinals

I hate seeing gum or other trash in urinals. It means that some poor maintenance person has to come and fish it out. Sure, people who clean public bathrooms wear gloves and generally clean up after people, but are you really so lazy and self centered that you are willing to add cleaning your trash out of the urinal to their list of unpleasant duties? Huh, urinal gum-spitting guy? The cleaner might have to change those cakes once a week, but you really want him to have to stick his hand in there today, don't ya?

Almost as bad are people who piss on toilet seats. How hard is it to lift the lid you savages? Push the lid up with your foot if you're scared of bathroom cooties.

Art

For a while I confused art with profound feeling. I could not appreciate the planning, trial, and error that must go into making a successful work. I had the temperament and sensitivity to be an artist, but not the dedication.

It's not just a matter of time. It's a willingness to sit in hard feelings, to feel uncomfortable. It's a willingness to risk it all in order to see more clearly. It's a state of being that is as much dream as reality, and as much future and past as present. Three dimensions are rendered in two. All of complex reality is merged into word or image.

Infinite Universes

If there are infinite universes, will my consciousness go forever? At a minimum, I will live my full possible life.

If there are infinite universes, do I have infinite consciousnesses or just one consciousness with infinite aspects?

There are infinite universes and infinite consciousness within the known universe.

I hope there's a universe in which I have the power of flight. And one in which I play professional baseball.

Time and Trial

I had a class last night for which the topic was time management. All work and no play takes all the fun out of work. The pace will not relent, so I have to do the best I can to stay calm when madness spins about me.

I have a trial starting in a week. But I still don't know what I'll be arguing, because my young clients don't know what they want.

Of course they don't know. Two strangers just rolled into their house today and said: so, there's a trial coming up and if the judge finds that your parent did something wrong, you could get put in foster care. If the judge says your parent didn't do anything wrong, it goes back to the way it was before: you don't go to therapy anymore, and there's no more order of protection for your parent not to hit you.

How could we have even expected the kids to have a ready answer to that kind of question? We phrased it much less confusingly than the example above (I hope).

We'll probably have to interview the kids again before the trial, even though it's very disruptive for the family.

I honestly don't know if I could bear doing this kind of work on a daily basis. Someone needs to do it. Someone, like me, whose heart breaks for his clients, will probably be the most dedicated advocate for the kids. But someone like me, who might be haunted by his cases 24/7, is especially susceptible to burnout. I have 3 cases right now. Legal Aid children's attorneys have as many as 150 cases at a time.

A Couple Thoughts to Extend This Study Break

It's amazing how well impending finals motivate me to clean my apartment. It wasn't enough to wash the dishes or change the cat litter. No, I had to break down the cardboard, and unpack all our books from boxes, where they had been sitting since June 1st. We are moving again in six months, so it's unclear how pressing the need was to unpack those books. Oh, and I had to sort some mail. I mean, having a messy study area keeps a guy from really bearing down and focusing focusing focusing.

Fear is a powerful motivator. I have a job, and I have done well at finals for four straight semesters. Motivation thus a bit lower this time 'round.

A thought struck me the other morning: why did I stop practicing religion as soon as I decided it was fake, yet continue to consume pornography? Both require one to willingly suspend disbelief in order to create a bubble of warmth in the cold void.

Things Are Looking Up

New President. It's been a long time since I felt like our president could do some good for the nation and the world.

New Job. I will be serving a 2-year clerkship starting next year. Normally, law clerks do research and help draft judicial decisions. My job will be more focused on recommending whether the appeal should be heard at all.

New city. Moving from New York City to a smaller city. Looking forward to more time with Mrs. Beckett, more time outdoors, less time spent in traffic, lower expenses, and more snow.

Still Waiting

I have always felt there was something I would become. At some, point, I would awake into the life I was meant to live. But days and years have passed and I have not had my great awakening. I have become clearer, smarter, more focused, less self-destructive. But I am not changing the world. I still want to change the world. I still believe in the power of my insight, and my ability to help. I am a good teacher. I am a good thinker, and a good writer. I am empathic.

Within a year, I will be a lawyer. And, if nothing changes, I will be working at a law firm. Not because it is my dream, but because it is where my life is going right now. I have to be patient now. I am still in school. I am still learning. I am still building my skill as a thinker, writer, and advocate.

And I am still waiting for my life to start, even as I understand that this day, these moments are my life. They are all there is.

This time must have my care and focus. Every moment is another opportunity to awake into the life I am supposed to live because my life is the life I am supposed to live. I think this is akin to the weak anthropic principle. I have seen it rendered many ways. I attempt to render it thus: the possible conditions that can lead to the present state are necessarily unique. It's why deduction is possible. I have seen something; therefore, the universe of what could have happened is limited. Imagine, for example, that you see a wilted flower. That wilted flower can only have been produced by a limited set of occurrences, e.g., the life and death of the flower. Moreso, that flower could not be, were you not there to see it.

Just so, I now am. I could not be otherwise. My very existence removes a whole world of possibility from existence. My existence prevents my father from having been killed in Vietnam. That I never have played professional baseball prevents me from having been a professional baseball player. Thus the future affects the past as much as the past affects the future. It is a way of stating an obvious imperative that's easy to overlook.

Related: There is no meaning independent of the listener. There is no reality independent of consciousness.

Perhaps I should not be twisting astro- into metaphysics. But how else to know whether they go together?

photo: (c)2007 Derek Ramsey, grabbed from this page.

High Anxiety

Do you live your life in a state of high anxiety? Do you feel like a motor drives you from one task to the next? Do you constantly worry what others think of you? Do you have trouble relaxing? Do you feel like you're running toward a goal that keeps moving further away? DO you sleep erratically? Do you always feel like your world is about to collapse around you?

If so, you may be suffering from panic disorder, law school, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and/or manic-depression linked to the need to please others in order to maintain a sense of self worth.

Self-medication is not advised.

Today