I am working from bed today. After two days of sleep, I tried going to class yesterday, and it took almost everything out of me. I haven't been sick like this in years. My girlfriend keeps telling me I just have to stay in bed if I want to have any chance of getting better soon, but I don't like just lying here watching advertisements for Binder and Binder, Social Security Disability Advocates. I did that kind of work last summer, and I know that the $600 a month one can get from Social Security Disability would not be enough to live on. Still, it is hard to get focused on school again. I just picked up the trial record for the appellate brief I have to write in legal writing and wonder if I am ever going to be able to do this work day in and day out.
I am at a difficult point in my studies. Thus far I have been carried along on the spirit of naive curiosity. I knew so little about the law when I first started. I don't think I knew the difference between a law and an ordinance, let alone what a summary judgment was. The whole thing was such a mystery to me that it was exciting. I felt like I was learning a whole new way to see the world that I had not previously explored. Let's just say, the honeymoon is over.
It is not that I now find the law boring. Rather, I find it overwhelmingly complex and difficult. There is so much detail that I have to learn that I feel I have lost touch with my initial excitement. I must be experiencing what those students who always wanted to be lawyers experienced during the first year of law school: this stuff is technical, often very dry, and requires an immense amount of work to be successful. It is no longer enough to just be curious. If I am going to learn this stuff, I am going to have to want to learn it. Unfortunately, I am not blessed with one of those brains that can simply learn information for the sake of accomplishing the task at hand. I am the type of person who has to feel that what I am doing has meaning.
Lying in bed with aches and a stuffy head really gets you thinking about why it is you are doing what you are doing. Would I rather be doing something else? No. I have tried other "careers," and I can tell you that you run up against the same wall. I am up against the wall that separates armatures from professionals, getting by from solid accomplishments. This is not just a legal challenge but a challenge in myself to commit to something and do it the best I can. Maybe getting sick will help me get over this hump. As Nietzsche said:
I am at a difficult point in my studies. Thus far I have been carried along on the spirit of naive curiosity. I knew so little about the law when I first started. I don't think I knew the difference between a law and an ordinance, let alone what a summary judgment was. The whole thing was such a mystery to me that it was exciting. I felt like I was learning a whole new way to see the world that I had not previously explored. Let's just say, the honeymoon is over.
It is not that I now find the law boring. Rather, I find it overwhelmingly complex and difficult. There is so much detail that I have to learn that I feel I have lost touch with my initial excitement. I must be experiencing what those students who always wanted to be lawyers experienced during the first year of law school: this stuff is technical, often very dry, and requires an immense amount of work to be successful. It is no longer enough to just be curious. If I am going to learn this stuff, I am going to have to want to learn it. Unfortunately, I am not blessed with one of those brains that can simply learn information for the sake of accomplishing the task at hand. I am the type of person who has to feel that what I am doing has meaning.
Lying in bed with aches and a stuffy head really gets you thinking about why it is you are doing what you are doing. Would I rather be doing something else? No. I have tried other "careers," and I can tell you that you run up against the same wall. I am up against the wall that separates armatures from professionals, getting by from solid accomplishments. This is not just a legal challenge but a challenge in myself to commit to something and do it the best I can. Maybe getting sick will help me get over this hump. As Nietzsche said:
I feel like I have been going non-stop since this semester started. In fact, I feel like I have been going non-stop since law school started. So much so that I was not so much learning this semester but getting through. I feel like being out of the look sets me at a new starting point and maybe I will escape through the back door and begin to feel less overwhelmed by the mass of information I need to absorb.“Enduring habits I
hate... Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my
misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect,
because this sort of thing leaves me with a hundred backdoors through
which I can escape from enduring habits.”
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