working sick or sick of work?

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:

“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.”

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.

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Government works?

As part of my work study job, I have occasion to call a local Social Security office. Often I have a very simple question, like yesterday when I simply wished to determine which worker was handling a file, so I could leave a message directly on his/her message machine. An attendant could have answered the question in thirty seconds, but if this particular office has its way, you will get so frustrated, you will never ever track down your claim. Let me explain.

If you wish to get in touch with your local office, the first thing you will have to do is get their phone number, which is neither in the phone book or on the Social Security website (only the address can be found in those places.) If you want the number, you need to call the national 1-800 number and you should expect to wait at least 7 minutes to speak with a representative and give lots of information. After you get the phone number, you can call the local office. I have learned from experience that if I simply act as if I have a rotary phone, I will most quickly be routed to "the attendant." If you follow their prompts for non-rotary phones, you will have to work your way through several levels of menus before you end up in the same place. Now, do not be fooled into thinking I have found a short-cut. I will still have to listen to a long recording telling me I can find all the information I need either on the website or the 1-800 number (which I have already discovered cannot help me.)

At this point I think it is only a matter of waiting in line for the next attendant, as the digital voice has told me. After several minutes, I hear a clicking sound and the line rings only to be interrupted by the message "mailbox 123 is full, your call will be forwarded to the attendant." I thought that is where my call was already going. When did I say I wanted to leave a message? Anyway, I am on my way now, and getting through that obstacle must mean I am close to speaking with a person now. But wait, after several more minutes of waiting, I receive another message: "thank you for calling Social Security. Have a nice day!" Disconnected. Hum. Try again. Same loop. Try a third time. Same loop. I guess if I want this question answered, I am either going to have to go down to the office or write a letter (and getting mail answered from Social Security is a whole other post).

I understand why our homeless disabled clients need us.