Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Posts from 2015 that I particularly liked looking back on:
I'm not so sure that Ultimate Truth is available when you are operating at any sort of remove from the actual events. Once it turns into narrative it is suspect, because narrative is a persuasive tool, and our mind seeks out narrative.
If that makes sense to you, I'll give you a doughnut.
We do prospective students a huge disservice with the lie that a JD is just a handy thing to have around, like a hammer or a roll of duct tape.
Diogenes said, “And if you could learn to live on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king.”
[T]he fact that from one of the worst things about America some of the best things emerged is worth celebrating.
But that's not really what is peculiar about the experience of seeing an anecdote in which I am a character (a vaguely comic character at that) in print. What it seems to be about is a concern on my part, rooted in vanity of course, that in this anecdote what I believe to be my complexity, my dimensionality, is lost. I have become, somehow, the father in Clueless-- a supporting character in someone else's movie. It is strangely jarring to find myself recognizing that character, and then realizing that I recognize him because he is me, like staring at a stranger across the room in a bar, and then realizing that I am looking in a mirror.
So last week -- last Thursday morning, at about 3:30-- I woke up with serious abdominal pain. After I ruled out ectopic pregnancy I really wasn't sure what might be the cause, so I vomited for a while, and went to sleep in the back bedroom so my thrashing and moaning wouldn't disturb A. Of course, sleep was not in the picture, and in the morning I told A. that I'd be staying at home in agony. Naturally she wanted to be all helpful and stuff, but she also had a deposition to get to. I told her that if things took a turn I would either call her or die.
I have concluded that people who carry texts around like that are pretty much always going to be people I'm going to have a problem with. Bibles, Korans, copies of The Great Gatsby-- whatever it is, the only reason you can possibly have for carrying it around is because you are hoping for the chance to wave it at someone.
I'm not so sure that Ultimate Truth is available when you are operating at any sort of remove from the actual events. Once it turns into narrative it is suspect, because narrative is a persuasive tool, and our mind seeks out narrative.
If that makes sense to you, I'll give you a doughnut.
We do prospective students a huge disservice with the lie that a JD is just a handy thing to have around, like a hammer or a roll of duct tape.
Diogenes said, “And if you could learn to live on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king.”
[T]he fact that from one of the worst things about America some of the best things emerged is worth celebrating.
But that's not really what is peculiar about the experience of seeing an anecdote in which I am a character (a vaguely comic character at that) in print. What it seems to be about is a concern on my part, rooted in vanity of course, that in this anecdote what I believe to be my complexity, my dimensionality, is lost. I have become, somehow, the father in Clueless-- a supporting character in someone else's movie. It is strangely jarring to find myself recognizing that character, and then realizing that I recognize him because he is me, like staring at a stranger across the room in a bar, and then realizing that I am looking in a mirror.
So last week -- last Thursday morning, at about 3:30-- I woke up with serious abdominal pain. After I ruled out ectopic pregnancy I really wasn't sure what might be the cause, so I vomited for a while, and went to sleep in the back bedroom so my thrashing and moaning wouldn't disturb A. Of course, sleep was not in the picture, and in the morning I told A. that I'd be staying at home in agony. Naturally she wanted to be all helpful and stuff, but she also had a deposition to get to. I told her that if things took a turn I would either call her or die.
I have concluded that people who carry texts around like that are pretty much always going to be people I'm going to have a problem with. Bibles, Korans, copies of The Great Gatsby-- whatever it is, the only reason you can possibly have for carrying it around is because you are hoping for the chance to wave it at someone.
// posted by Bill @ 11:27 AM 
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