March 27, 2009

Go Big or Go Home

Greetings from Ocean Springs, Miss., where I am wrapping up a week of Spring Break of Service, working for the Mississippi Center for Justice. Tomorrow, I head to New York, N.Y., for a brief visit and Sunday, it's back to the grind in Chicago. I will have more to say about this trip in a future post (and photos to show!), but I thought I would take this entry to address first my extended absence from the Realm.

No, the blog is not dead, though it does feel strange writing tonight, considering how long it has been since I last wrote anything nonlegal. The immediate reason for my absence is as clear as it is uninteresting: I decided to take five classes in winter quarter, and compounded with journal work, was left with almost no free or down time whatsoever. Why I decided to do that to myself, however, is not as easy a question to answer.

My general (facetious) response to that question thus far has been that I am simply maximizing the value I derive from the tuition I pay. Frankly, however, that response is total bullshit. There is no external value to taking more classes—no one cares how many classes you take, only how well you do—and indeed, if anything, it is a net negative because it allows one less time to study for each exam. The value, therefore, if there is any to be found at all, must be in the form of personal edification. But at what cost, and to what end? After months of killing myself, I am not so sure I have answers to either of those questions.

What I am left with, then, is absurdity and a mantra that I have always adhered to in most everything I do: go big or go home. Why do something if you're not going to do it all out, right? That sentiment remains logical in my mind, but I struggle in reconciling it with the knowledge (again acquired the hard way) that all out is not always worth it (as it probably was not last quarter).

Coming down to Mississippi this past week was useful in putting things in perspective. The realization that I had literally done nothing besides work for the past three months was disconcerting. Even in the darkest days of adding value as a consultant, I always found time to, say, read books or update this blog. It made me realize I need to make a change.

In that spirit, I have decided to take fewer classes and join a legal clinic (though any helping of people arising from my clinic membership will obviously be incidental—I would not want to compromise my reputation as a feckless corporate stooge). Hopefully it will allow me to spend less time at the (loathsome) library and more time enjoying the nonexistent Chicago spring. More importantly for you, dear readers, I should be thinking and writing about things other than the law again. Self-loathing and mediocrity are back—with a vengeance.