Lesson 1A: Voluntarily responding to questions that are based on passages read collectively in class allows you to impress your neighboring classmates without admitting to your general cluelessness. Unless, of course, you lack the ability to resist disclosing your general cluelessness when complimented on your insightful comment, in which case, you simply resurrect your status as Queen of the Cliff Notes. This may or may not be something you should take pride in...I'm just sayin'.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Lessons from Law School #1
Always double check the edition of books purchased online (before ordering and then again after they arrive). You see, different editions may have nearly identical content, but are likely to have different page numbering. So, while you trudge through the latter half of the dissenting opinions in an obscure bug bite case from the early 1900s in the 3rd edition, your classmates may be reading through a fairly clear, complete, and historically significant case from the civil rights movement that appears on the same pages in the 4th edition. You, however, may not discover this divergence until the professor starts dissecting the case in class and you are forced to madly google summaries so as not to be completely and totally lost during your very first class of law school.
Confessions of a Non-Blogger
So, clearly, if anyone were to stumble upon this page and notice the timestamps of the heretofore one and only post, it would be clear that I am not a blogger. I like to claim that it is because I shun the exhibitionist tendencies of cyberspace--I'm simply too cooth and self-respecting to put my personal life on display for the masses. I also like to tell myself that I lack certain levels of narcissism--that I am clearly objectively aware enough to recognize that my opinions are not worthy of granting prophetic status via the interwebs.
The truth is that I'm a lazy, terrified writer. While I love having written something, writing sucks. It's painful and exhausting. Given the opportunity, I simply stop writing right after the, "hey, that would make a good essay/story/poem/etc." moment. Unfortunately, in my little heart of hearts, I am a writer. And, despite my fears and utter lack of creative productivity, I find it increasingly difficult to hide from that reality.
Perhaps more detrimental than laziness, I'm also a pansy. While i certainly support the shunning exhibitionism as a general tendency, as a writer, I recognize the value of honest self-disclosure. Philip Lopate voices the paradigm I adopt (albeit, usually only in theory): In focusing on the honesty of personal essayist, I do not mean to imply that they are relentlessly exposing dark secrets about themselves. We learn more about their habits of thought than about the sorts of abuses and crimes that spice our afternoon TV talk shows."
Of course, self-disclosure--true honesty--has always been rather terrifying to me. I don't really like putting my soul, even a small part of it, on display. I suppose that is precisely the reason that I stopped writing creatively around 7th grade. Professional and technical writing allows the same play with words, the engineering of a complex structure, but it allows the author to divorce herself from the impact of honesty.
And so, after nearly a decade of encouraging students to put in the hard work to write and to be painfully honest, I suppose its time to take my own advice and actually start writing. And, in the spirit of authenticity and honesty, I will admit, that having a whole new realm of potential procrastination (yay, law school!), I certainly have found increasing motivation to escape into my happy world of musings and linguistic acrobatics.
So, i'm not going to make too many promises, but my goal is to post something...anything...at least weekly. We'll see how that goes :-)
The truth is that I'm a lazy, terrified writer. While I love having written something, writing sucks. It's painful and exhausting. Given the opportunity, I simply stop writing right after the, "hey, that would make a good essay/story/poem/etc." moment. Unfortunately, in my little heart of hearts, I am a writer. And, despite my fears and utter lack of creative productivity, I find it increasingly difficult to hide from that reality.
Perhaps more detrimental than laziness, I'm also a pansy. While i certainly support the shunning exhibitionism as a general tendency, as a writer, I recognize the value of honest self-disclosure. Philip Lopate voices the paradigm I adopt (albeit, usually only in theory): In focusing on the honesty of personal essayist, I do not mean to imply that they are relentlessly exposing dark secrets about themselves. We learn more about their habits of thought than about the sorts of abuses and crimes that spice our afternoon TV talk shows."
Of course, self-disclosure--true honesty--has always been rather terrifying to me. I don't really like putting my soul, even a small part of it, on display. I suppose that is precisely the reason that I stopped writing creatively around 7th grade. Professional and technical writing allows the same play with words, the engineering of a complex structure, but it allows the author to divorce herself from the impact of honesty.
And so, after nearly a decade of encouraging students to put in the hard work to write and to be painfully honest, I suppose its time to take my own advice and actually start writing. And, in the spirit of authenticity and honesty, I will admit, that having a whole new realm of potential procrastination (yay, law school!), I certainly have found increasing motivation to escape into my happy world of musings and linguistic acrobatics.
So, i'm not going to make too many promises, but my goal is to post something...anything...at least weekly. We'll see how that goes :-)
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
No Apologies Necessary
About 10 years ago, I opened a bottle of Fruitopia. Leaning on the edge of my desk, I twisted off the cap and glanced at the one-liner printed on the underside of the bottle lid. In simple, fixed-space font, it read: Is there enough purple in your life?
Alone in a stark, windowless office, I shook my head and offered the lid an audible confession, "No...There's not."
Thirst had serendipitously exposed a small but poignant tragedy. See, I love purple! If I really think about it, purple is my favorite color--its aesthetic appeal accented by its philosophical undercurrent. Purple is bold and undeniable. Even in its muted shades, purple leaves little room for timidity. It doesn't blend into the shadows or attempt neutrality. Purple is pretty much always purple--genuine and authentic and without apology.
But, as I toyed with the waxed-aluminum lid, I couldn't think of a single piece of clothing or personal affect that I owned in purple. Pondering the inconsistency, I supposed that when given the option, purple was easily deemed just a bit too bold, a little too intense for whatever purposes an item was destined. And, at the moment when deliberation turned to purchasing, I simply deferred my passion for the safety of pragmatics.
The otherwise benign marketing ploy gazed back at me, recasting my life as a study in subtle, chromatic cowardice. And so, as I sipped on the watered-down concoction of all-natural fruit flavors, I resolved to fill my world with a lot more purple. I suppose a juice lid is not the most sophisticated catalyst for personal epiphany. And, on the surface, the choice to include a little more purple in everyday life is cursory at best. But, perhaps what etched that moment firmly into my mind was that it marked a conscious commitment to authenticity.
I once heard someone remark that children are born knowing who they are, and we spend the next eighteen years trying to talk them out of it. Of course, authenticity is a tricky game. While we may have once possessed an untarnished sense of self, it quickly oxidizes into narcissism without the requisite addition of empathy and interdependence. And far too often, who we think we are, who we wish we were, and who we believe we should be make collateral damage of who we truly are.
The grand irony of our ongoing adolescences is that we often claim authenticity to avoid the very act. "I'm just not that kind of person. It's just not me, " we tell ourselves and whoever else will listen. Because, for some reason, being ourselves is scary. In those rare moments of stark honesty, perhaps we can admit that part of our fear stems from the realization that authenticity has a natural tendency to preclude excuses. We fear it will leave us holding the bag of our inevitable failures with nothing to blame but our personal lacking.
Its true, of course, but silly just the same. The irrationality of our fear is not that it miscalculates authenticity, but that it judges the whole on the merits of a single part. Our fear has built a case on a faulty assumption. Dare we ask, Who cares if we fail? Who cares if we are found wanting? When our actions and thoughts and words are genuine, at worst, we are guilty of unbridled humanity.
See, the truth is that there is no such thing as a pristine assent to untarnished accomplishment. There is no color that is both universally unoffensive and boldly individual. My favorite purple purse will inevitably clash with far more than it will compliment. But there in lies the beauty of being purple. Purple is bold and intense and unapologetically so.
Alone in a stark, windowless office, I shook my head and offered the lid an audible confession, "No...There's not."
Thirst had serendipitously exposed a small but poignant tragedy. See, I love purple! If I really think about it, purple is my favorite color--its aesthetic appeal accented by its philosophical undercurrent. Purple is bold and undeniable. Even in its muted shades, purple leaves little room for timidity. It doesn't blend into the shadows or attempt neutrality. Purple is pretty much always purple--genuine and authentic and without apology.
But, as I toyed with the waxed-aluminum lid, I couldn't think of a single piece of clothing or personal affect that I owned in purple. Pondering the inconsistency, I supposed that when given the option, purple was easily deemed just a bit too bold, a little too intense for whatever purposes an item was destined. And, at the moment when deliberation turned to purchasing, I simply deferred my passion for the safety of pragmatics.
The otherwise benign marketing ploy gazed back at me, recasting my life as a study in subtle, chromatic cowardice. And so, as I sipped on the watered-down concoction of all-natural fruit flavors, I resolved to fill my world with a lot more purple. I suppose a juice lid is not the most sophisticated catalyst for personal epiphany. And, on the surface, the choice to include a little more purple in everyday life is cursory at best. But, perhaps what etched that moment firmly into my mind was that it marked a conscious commitment to authenticity.
I once heard someone remark that children are born knowing who they are, and we spend the next eighteen years trying to talk them out of it. Of course, authenticity is a tricky game. While we may have once possessed an untarnished sense of self, it quickly oxidizes into narcissism without the requisite addition of empathy and interdependence. And far too often, who we think we are, who we wish we were, and who we believe we should be make collateral damage of who we truly are.
The grand irony of our ongoing adolescences is that we often claim authenticity to avoid the very act. "I'm just not that kind of person. It's just not me, " we tell ourselves and whoever else will listen. Because, for some reason, being ourselves is scary. In those rare moments of stark honesty, perhaps we can admit that part of our fear stems from the realization that authenticity has a natural tendency to preclude excuses. We fear it will leave us holding the bag of our inevitable failures with nothing to blame but our personal lacking.
Its true, of course, but silly just the same. The irrationality of our fear is not that it miscalculates authenticity, but that it judges the whole on the merits of a single part. Our fear has built a case on a faulty assumption. Dare we ask, Who cares if we fail? Who cares if we are found wanting? When our actions and thoughts and words are genuine, at worst, we are guilty of unbridled humanity.
See, the truth is that there is no such thing as a pristine assent to untarnished accomplishment. There is no color that is both universally unoffensive and boldly individual. My favorite purple purse will inevitably clash with far more than it will compliment. But there in lies the beauty of being purple. Purple is bold and intense and unapologetically so.
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