It’s so hard to stay motivated. I’m getting frustrated with the repetitive grind that is law school. This is only week two. Well, it’s week two of semester two, but the previous sentence had far more dramatic effect than this current one could ever hope to muster. I’m just tired.
Normally, I’m not the type that believes in omens, but recent events have me wondering. For one thing, I’m remembering my dreams. In my waking life, I have a fairly robust imagination, but one of the greatest frustrations of my life is that I wake up most mornings feeling completely out of touch with my subconscious. For the past week, however, I’ve developed a vague awareness of all of my dreams. They’ve mostly been nightmares.
Then there was that 60 Minutes story I saw on the opera-singing dwarf. Forgive my lack of political correctness, but I find the term “little person” slightly condescending. Anyway, two weeks ago, Ed Bradley interviewed opera singer Thomas Quasthoff, one of the finest baritones of his generation. He also happens to be a physically disabled “little person.” His arms are less than half the length of what they ought to be, which has prevented him from learning a musical instrument. It was because of this handicap that he was never able to enroll in a music school, despite his impressive singing voice. With his options limited, he reluctantly studied law. My heart sank as I listened to Quasthoff reflect on his legal career:
“It’s very, very hard if you know and if you feel inside yourself, ‘I am an artist and I want to be an artist,’ and then to have this dry stuff. It was really a hard time.”
I am an artist at heart, but I’ve also grown mighty accustomed to eating. To my mind, pursuing law has always seemed to be an appropriate middle ground between work and play. That’s not to say, of course, that I never doubt myself. And of all the nights to watch 60 Minutes, I had to choose this particular show, which spoke directly to my personal anxieties and verbalized a fear of mine that I’ve been trying to overcome. Either God is trying to do me a huge favor, or He has a really sick sense of humor.
Then, most recently, there was the blue book incident. Last semester, I didn’t do nearly as well as I had hoped I would. Today, I had the unhappy task of retrieving my old final exams from the registrar’s office so that I could figure where I went wrong. I approached the counter, showed my student ID, and the clerk set my blue books down beside an untidy stack of papers. I reached out a hand to retrieve my finals, and I inflicted on myself one of the most violent paper cuts that I’ve had in years.
I’m not a superstitious person. Rationally, I know that my viewing of the 60 Minutes story and the blue book mauling are entirely unrelated events. Furthermore, my dreams are only a natural bi-product of the heightened anxiety that resulted from receiving my low grades. But I’m a lover of metaphor and literary symbolism. If I were a character in a novel, surely readers would take note of all the recent events in my life and regard them as blatant devices of foreshadowing.
But what the hell happens next? It’s frightening, isn’t it? What happens next in your life is ultimately up to you. I feel like hiding in my bed for the next few days.
I think next break you should write more. Maybe because you haven’t really written very much during your break or while you were at school so you feel deprived of your artistic creativity. The only thing I really worry about with you going to law school is that your creativity and wonderful writing might cease one day. You won’t have time for it anymore, and it will die. So if you want to stay home and write instead of visiting me sometimes, I wouldn’t mind. Just make sure you send me any finished work before you show anyone else. =) I like to feel special.