A REFLECTION
In recent weeks, my writing pace has slowed. I am thankful for that. It has allowed me to look back over my work and reflect on what is important to me. No one likes change, but I welcome this one.
I write thematically. Last week, I looked over several old pieces and started to think about the themes that occupy me most. I asked myself: "Why do I write about these things? Why are they important to me? Is it apparent why they are important?" Perhaps it is apparent why I write about reason, dignity, evidence, law, power, money, death, fairness, equality and happiness. Perhaps it isn't. Perhaps people think it's just because I am a hermit who writes whatever he thinks on a certain day.
But that would be incorrect. Common threads unite all my themes. Those threads bind all my pieces together. Taken together, they present an overall philosophy about our existence. I am a consummate individualist: I never surrender who I am. I do not like to follow, but neither am I a zealous leader. I am not presumptuous enough for that. If my ideas gain traction, it is by quiet assent, not by compulsion or advocacy. In the end, I am a voice against all the forces in our society that subvert individual creativity and value. I criticize commerce because commerce is antithetical to both. I do not like forces that instrumentalize human beings or reduce them to purposes. I do not like convention. That is why I write satire, too. Normality makes me laugh--hard.
Among the threads that unite my work is a respect for time. I write about time in many ways. But in the end I admonish my readers to remember that time is vital because it is all we have. Without time, we cannot cultivate our interests or expand our personalities. Nor can we experience joy or feel good about ourselves. Yet so many forces compete for our time. When we lose our time to some competing interest, we lose the opportunity to live for ourselves. That is one reason why I am so critical of employment: Employment robs our best time and leaves nothing for us. It purports to "compensate" us for the robbery with a paycheck. But what good is pay (even really poor pay) if you can't spend it until your best time is gone? We have just a limited time to experience positive emotions before we die. If we give up our time in unpleasant ways, we never get it back to spend it pleasantly. We have only one shot at joy.
My views about time have changed significantly over the years. Before my father died in 2006, I had a very dismissive attitude about time: I always thought I would have more. I did not mind working for 14 hours a day in an office because I knew there would be time to enjoy myself later in life. I had smug assumptions; I thought life would just wait for me as I slaved away, wasting my time. I thought for sure that I would have at least 25 more years with my mother and father. I thought they could wait until I put in all that work, so it wouldn't hurt if I skipped seeing them for Christmas. I thought they would understand if I had to work a weekend.
But all those smug assumptions came crashing down when my father died. He died without any warning. In January 2006, he was a healthy 58-year-old who ran half-marathons every year. Then he developed pancreatic cancer. By June 2006, he was dead. And I had skipped his birthday every year for five years before that because I had no idea that he could die. I was focused on my "traditional career program." I did not respect time. And I suffered for it.
Thankfully, I learned my lesson. Only after living with death did I start to respect time. It made me rue the choices I had made in my life. I did not care about "success" any more. After all, what good does "success" do when you can suddenly just die at any moment like my Dad? Who cares whether you get a certain job or own a home? It's all meaningless; it can all end before you know it. Recognizing how fast life can end makes you respect time. And it makes you start spending your time more wisely, too.
Within six months after my father's death, I resigned my job at the law firm. It came to nauseate me. It probably would have nauseated me even if my father had not died. But after experiencing his death, I simply could not bear the pettiness of law practice. I could not bear hearing people whine and bicker about money. I could not bear the infighting about filing papers, sharing copy costs, managing calendars and setting docket dates. And I could not bear the ceaseless criticism about "not moving fast enough" to make profits on cases. It all seemed utterly, utterly meaningless. I did not care in the least. After all, what difference did all this make? I could just die suddenly like my father; what good what profits and docket dates do then?
When my father lay dying, he was not thinking about success, careers or money. He was thinking about his own existence. He was thinking about the fact that his time was running out; and whether he had spent it well.
I took that lesson to heart: Was I spending my time well? Or was I wasting it in a chase after meaningless rewards? I concluded that I was wasting it. I began living in the awareness of death; and that made me treasure my life. I started savoring my time. I resented anyone and anything that impinged on my time; for how was I to know whether I would be here tomorrow? I wanted to be master of my own time, because time gave me my chance to live. Obviously, this did not make me a good candidate for employment. So I had to adjust my approach to supporting myself.
I contented myself with making just enough money to feed and house myself. And I did so in a way that did not rob my time and dignity. Since then, I have been happier with my lot. For the most part, I am master of my time. That brings its own rewards.
I never forget what happened to my father. It tempers me whenever I feel the impulse to get into the "success race." I reflect on how little time I have to relish my life. Then I think how much time I will have to yield in order to achieve "career success." That is to say nothing about the sacrifices in dignity, ethics and happiness I would have to make to achieve it. Finally, I think: "Even if I do achieve 'career success,' what will I feel? What good will it do? What if I simply die on the way? When I lay dying, what will I think about how I've spent my time? Will I regret all the days and nights I toiled in an office fighting for a company's profit?"
These thoughts comfort me. They assure me that I have made the right decision for my life. Having said that, I know not everyone will make the same decision. My views about time reflect my experiences. They work for me because I live in the awareness of death. My respect for time intertwines with my respect for death. After all, life--with all the joy and misery it can write upon our bodies--hangs by a thread. It can end instantly. And life is time: There is our time, then there is death.
That is a pretty good impulsion to spend our time well. Because once it's over, we're over, too.
That is why I write about time: It is the tragic, ever-diminishing coating that encapsulates us all. When we waste it, we waste ourselves. So I choose not to intentionally waste it on anything that does not bring me joy.
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death. Show all posts
Friday, April 16, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
A LITTLE ENCOURAGEMENT FROM NIETZSCHE
A REFLECTION
Sometimes I wonder what all my writing will lead to. I never intended to make a career from my writing. People tell me: "Go write a book." But then they say: "You need to have a story that people will like, etc., etc." In other words, to be a successful writer I need to stop wandering and get focused. If I want a bestseller, I need to Grishamize.
If you read my blog, you know I'm no John Grisham. I simply write what occurs to me. But my writing is thematically consistent. An identifiable core runs through everything I write here. I think it's possible to glean my life philosophy from the topics I choose to discuss. That might not be a recipe for bestselling commercial writing. But what have I ever cared about commerce? If anything, I recoil from it. I'm an Aristotelean in that regard: Philosophy and commerce just don't mix.
Still, it's a lonely road sometimes. I look at authors who achieve commercial success and wonder why no one ever notices me. Maybe I am just too weak or too preoccupied to promote myself. On the other hand, I know that most Americans really don't care about--or care to think about--the issues I typically address in my writing. So my commercial non-viability is really twofold: (1) I do not promote; and (2) My substance is largely unpalatable.
To be clear, I am not complaining. It is exciting to write only about things that stimulate me. For the longest time, I lived life without commenting on it. Commentary simmered in my mind all the time; work just never gave me a chance to write it all down. This blog has given me the chance I always craved. It has transformed me. So even if this blog does not pay me in U.S. dollars, it pays me in emotional satisfaction. If I die tomorrow, people would know who I am. My voice would not be lost. This blog is as much a testament as it is a forum.
I always find inspiration and encouragement when I need them most. Yesterday, I sat thinking about the fact that no one will ever read what I write, at least not in my lifetime. It frustrated me a little bit. I even thought about my philosophical archetype, Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche never achieved commercial success in life, either. His books barely sold a thousand copies. When he was 45, he lost his mind and never recovered. He died young. I don't think I'm losing my mind yet, but I identify with what happened to Nietzsche: I am defiantly proud of the fact that I am anti-commercial; but it nonetheless hurts to know I will likely never receive wide recognition.
So I felt a little down yesterday. It was cold, gray, windy and rainy outside. I reflected on how poor I am. I can barely pay my rent. In fact, this month I can't even pay it at all. I need to budget out my money to buy food. Plus I need to care for Steve, who is incapacitated. It pretty much sucks. I still experience joy these days. But it only peeks through like tiny patches of blue sky on a very cloudy day.
I decided to crack open Nietzsche's Human, All-too Human. I paged through the aphorisms. I stumbled on this one: "121. A Vow--I do not want to read any more authors about whom people say: 'He set out to write a book.' Rather, I only want to read authors whose thoughts became a book by accident."
Is this me? It sure sounds like it. I just write my thoughts. I never set out to write a book. I simply allow myself to pour out impressions on things that fascinate me or incite me. There is consistency in my thoughts. But they do not reflect a conscious plan to "write a book" in the conventional sense. Could they "accidentally" become a book? Perhaps. As a whole, I like to think that this blog resembles a collection of Nietzschean impressions. Nietzsche's unconventional thoughts transformed into books. Perhaps mine can too.
That was encouraging. Without even trying, I fit into the category of "authors" whom Nietzsche might have wanted to read. I am not one of those authors who "set out to write a book." I do not sketch plots or try to cram my writing into a conventional format that people like. I am not John Grisham. John Grisham's thoughts do not become a book "by accident." No, when he sits down to write, he knows what book it's going in. He's just fleshing out the formula he laid down before he starting writing.
I'm glad I stumbled on Nietzsche's aphorism when I did. I was feeling low and worthless. I was losing hope. But after discovering that Nietzsche, too, faced similar struggles in his time, I felt encouraged to face mine. I felt freshly secure in my writing. It did not bother me that I am not a bestseller. Rather, I felt hope that perhaps one day--like Nietzsche--my thoughts would "accidentally" transform into a book. That thought brightened me, even if the "book" appears after I die. I do not really value my life too much anyway. I would rather have people remember my thoughts than my "too too solid flesh." As the Germans say: "Wer schreibt, der bleibt" : "He who writes remains."
I blog because it is the only way for me to publish without editorial control or commercial pressure. Nietzsche wrote longhand and hoarded his writings in his desk. He found a publisher who printed a few editions. I can publish over the internet, even if my audience is small. At least it's something. And I will continue. That is my vow.
Sometimes I wonder what all my writing will lead to. I never intended to make a career from my writing. People tell me: "Go write a book." But then they say: "You need to have a story that people will like, etc., etc." In other words, to be a successful writer I need to stop wandering and get focused. If I want a bestseller, I need to Grishamize.
If you read my blog, you know I'm no John Grisham. I simply write what occurs to me. But my writing is thematically consistent. An identifiable core runs through everything I write here. I think it's possible to glean my life philosophy from the topics I choose to discuss. That might not be a recipe for bestselling commercial writing. But what have I ever cared about commerce? If anything, I recoil from it. I'm an Aristotelean in that regard: Philosophy and commerce just don't mix.
Still, it's a lonely road sometimes. I look at authors who achieve commercial success and wonder why no one ever notices me. Maybe I am just too weak or too preoccupied to promote myself. On the other hand, I know that most Americans really don't care about--or care to think about--the issues I typically address in my writing. So my commercial non-viability is really twofold: (1) I do not promote; and (2) My substance is largely unpalatable.
To be clear, I am not complaining. It is exciting to write only about things that stimulate me. For the longest time, I lived life without commenting on it. Commentary simmered in my mind all the time; work just never gave me a chance to write it all down. This blog has given me the chance I always craved. It has transformed me. So even if this blog does not pay me in U.S. dollars, it pays me in emotional satisfaction. If I die tomorrow, people would know who I am. My voice would not be lost. This blog is as much a testament as it is a forum.
I always find inspiration and encouragement when I need them most. Yesterday, I sat thinking about the fact that no one will ever read what I write, at least not in my lifetime. It frustrated me a little bit. I even thought about my philosophical archetype, Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche never achieved commercial success in life, either. His books barely sold a thousand copies. When he was 45, he lost his mind and never recovered. He died young. I don't think I'm losing my mind yet, but I identify with what happened to Nietzsche: I am defiantly proud of the fact that I am anti-commercial; but it nonetheless hurts to know I will likely never receive wide recognition.
So I felt a little down yesterday. It was cold, gray, windy and rainy outside. I reflected on how poor I am. I can barely pay my rent. In fact, this month I can't even pay it at all. I need to budget out my money to buy food. Plus I need to care for Steve, who is incapacitated. It pretty much sucks. I still experience joy these days. But it only peeks through like tiny patches of blue sky on a very cloudy day.
I decided to crack open Nietzsche's Human, All-too Human. I paged through the aphorisms. I stumbled on this one: "121. A Vow--I do not want to read any more authors about whom people say: 'He set out to write a book.' Rather, I only want to read authors whose thoughts became a book by accident."
Is this me? It sure sounds like it. I just write my thoughts. I never set out to write a book. I simply allow myself to pour out impressions on things that fascinate me or incite me. There is consistency in my thoughts. But they do not reflect a conscious plan to "write a book" in the conventional sense. Could they "accidentally" become a book? Perhaps. As a whole, I like to think that this blog resembles a collection of Nietzschean impressions. Nietzsche's unconventional thoughts transformed into books. Perhaps mine can too.
That was encouraging. Without even trying, I fit into the category of "authors" whom Nietzsche might have wanted to read. I am not one of those authors who "set out to write a book." I do not sketch plots or try to cram my writing into a conventional format that people like. I am not John Grisham. John Grisham's thoughts do not become a book "by accident." No, when he sits down to write, he knows what book it's going in. He's just fleshing out the formula he laid down before he starting writing.
I'm glad I stumbled on Nietzsche's aphorism when I did. I was feeling low and worthless. I was losing hope. But after discovering that Nietzsche, too, faced similar struggles in his time, I felt encouraged to face mine. I felt freshly secure in my writing. It did not bother me that I am not a bestseller. Rather, I felt hope that perhaps one day--like Nietzsche--my thoughts would "accidentally" transform into a book. That thought brightened me, even if the "book" appears after I die. I do not really value my life too much anyway. I would rather have people remember my thoughts than my "too too solid flesh." As the Germans say: "Wer schreibt, der bleibt" : "He who writes remains."
I blog because it is the only way for me to publish without editorial control or commercial pressure. Nietzsche wrote longhand and hoarded his writings in his desk. He found a publisher who printed a few editions. I can publish over the internet, even if my audience is small. At least it's something. And I will continue. That is my vow.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
TEXAS ANNOUNCES "WORLD WAR I THEME" FOR UPCOMING EXECUTIONS
TEXAS TALKBy : Mr. Brad Livingston, Executive Director, Texas State Criminal Justice Agency (Austin)(2005-present); Former Chief Financial Officer, Texas Board of Criminal Justice (1997-2001); Former Deputy Director, Financial Services Division, Texas Department of Criminal Justice (1997-2001); Accounting Expert; Christian.
Here in Texas, capital punishment works. We are not afraid to swiftly execute offenders. Our prosecutors, judges, legislators and administrators are all on the same page on this: We don't have mercy for killers, rapists, drug dealers and thugs. So we get them out of the community in the surest possible way we can: By lethally injecting them after a couple pointless appeals.
Our State criminal justice system is the best in the Nation because Texans support it. Criminal justice doesn't work without strong backing from the community. Thankfully, our system is both effective and efficient because every Texan knows where criminals belong: Strapped to a gurney in the Huntsville death house. Here at the Corrections Department, we think like Texans. We don't forgive and forget. We inject first and ask questions later.
Capital punishment works in Texas because it brings our community together. Texans love a good execution. Although we do not hang people in public like we did in the old days, we nonetheless widely publicize our executions "21st century style." Texans can stay current with day-to-day executions by logging into our "Executed Offender" database. See http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/executedoffenders.htm. That site provides accurate information about offenders who got their judicially-prescribed dose of potassium bromide. It shows their faces. It describes their crimes. It tells you what they said before they bought the farm. It even tells you what they had for dinner before taking a mosey down the death chamber. Basically, if you want to hear about the latest about executed offenders in Texas, just click on the link and you will get the whole story. Enjoy!
We are committed to bringing Texans a satisfactory capital punishment experience that is both invigorating and entertaining. At the same time, we must note that executions are not cheap. Although the State provides executions free of charge, our capital punishment delivery system has historically operated at a loss. We recently made that fact known to Texans in a local television broadcast. To our great relief, we found that millions of Texans were willing to pay a price to watch a good execution. We even received substantial voluntary donations from private citizens. Those donations defrayed our costs. As Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, I can assure you that Texas will always give you the executions you expect and deserve.
We are thankful that Texans support our criminal justice system. We also know that many Texans wish to directly participate in future executions. We have received many letters from victims' family members requesting the opportunity to push the button that releases chemicals into the offender's bloodstream. Other citizens have requested introducing some new execution methods "just to spruce things up a little bit." Still others have petitioned for larger spectator venues to accommodate all the people who want to see an offender die.
In response to these queries--and to reward Texans for their support--we have decided implement some positive changes to our capital punishment delivery system. Effective immediately, we hereby designate 2010 the year for "World War I Fun" in the Texas criminal justice department. Until further notice, we will execute offenders with vintage World War I weapons. Additionally, we will allow victims' families to directly participate in the execution for a small administrative fee. We believe that this program will bring Texans even closer together, while at the same time teaching a valuable history lesson about World War I. It will give families the chance to take personal revenge on offenders, deter future misconduct and raise funds for the State. In sum, we believe that "World War I Fun" is a "win-win" for both Texans and Texas.
But we need your support to make "World War I Fun" work. To that end, we would like to introduce the various new execution methods available under our new program. If you are a crime victim or a crime victim's relative, carefully review this information to determine which method best suits your needs and your budget. Although we wish we could allow every crime victim to choose the most expensive execution method, we must always observe budgetary constraints. For that reason, we list execution methods in ascending order of price.
1. TRENCH SHOVEL - $50 per execution
Get back at your girlfriend's murderer with this trusty old steel spade. For just $50, you can grab this vintage 1917 shovel and smash that convicted varmint to your heart's content. Notice that the shovel has a sharp edge as well as a flat surface. It also has a good heft for crushing skulls or severing arteries. At just $50 per execution, the trench shovel is an economically wise--yet emotionally fulfilling--way to exact justice on a real Texas bandit. If you wish to bring a friend (or parent) to the execution, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will provide another shovel for just $25 more--that's a 50% discount! With two shovels, you and your friend can really give the convict a walloping. After you've finished clubbing the criminal to a bloody pulp, corrections officers will add insult to his injury by using the brain-smattered shovels to dig a grave for him out back.2. BAYONET - $100 per execution
Cut right to the chase with a REAL World War I bayonet! You'll make a slicing impression with this genuine German antique. Your mother's killer will be trembling in his socks when he sees you coming at him with a foot-long silver blade. He'll wish he never raped and shot your mom as you thrust the shiny bayonet into his abdomen. Imagine how scared he'll be as he sits there helplessly strapped to a chair as you slash and stab him to death. You can do anything you want with the bayonet. You can scalp the criminal. You can stab him through the top of the head. You can saw off his fingers. Hell, you could even cut open his stomach and stuff his kidneys in his mouth while he's still alive. Go ahead! Knock yourself out! Do justice! We'll even throw in rubber gloves and a wetsuit for just $50 more so you won't get your nice clothes all bloody.3. SPRINGFIELD MODEL 1903 - $250 per execution (plus additional ammunition beyond 5 rounds)
If you prefer firearms to close-quarters weapons, then the Springfield M1903 is the choice for you. Don't get your hands dirty. Be an old-fashioned Texas marksman. Line the child rapist up in your sights, get the range right and BLAM! There goes the back of his head. As an added bonus, the Texas Criminal Justice Department will provide an ENTIRE CLIP of ammunition for your amusement; it is our way of saying "thank you" for your support. That means you can take your time with your criminal. You can fire your first shot through his shinbone. Then the next through his hand. You know, whatever you like. Give him a nice gutshot and ask him how he likes it now. But if you do not finish the convict off in five rounds, you must pay $10 per additional bullet. Despite the cost, we are certain that all you Texas sharpshooters out there will really appreciate going round for round on a scumbag with a Springfield. Go for it! Ready, aim, fire!4. MUSTARD GAS - $500 per execution
Maybe you liked chemistry in high school. Maybe you'd rather use science on a punk than a gun or a knife. If this fits your bill, then Texas Corrections has the solution for you: A genuine mustard gas grenade. For just $500, you can REALLY make a bank robber squirm by tossing some lethal chemicals directly into an airtight container. You can watch him squeal like a pig as he tries to hold his breath. But you'll just laugh, because the mustard gas will burn away his skin at the same time. That'll teach him to touch little girls at the playground! At the same time, you'll learn why most countries outlawed mustard gas after 1918! For the more adventurous citizens out there, mustard gas is the way to go. In Texas, we don't just shoot 'em, beat 'em or stab 'em. We gas 'em, too!5. MAXIM MACHINE GUN - $1000 per execution (includes 250-round ammunition belt)
If you're a marksman but prefer rapid fire, don't settle for a single shot. Get behind this VINTAGE 1911 Maxim machine gun and UNLOAD into a child molester with a full belt. Learn how the machine gun changed the face of warfare as you demonstrate what 250 30-caliber bullets can do to a Mexican gangster tied to a chair. Have fun with it! Hold down that trigger and roar! Let the machine gun do the talking. Cut the bastard in half if you want to. We regret that the Maxim costs more than other execution methods. It is difficult to find working models that do not jam. Additionally, it takes time to set up the Maxim and calibrate it; this thing weighs a lot. Your $1000 contribution helps defray all these costs. And believe us: Once you squeeze the trigger on this baby, you'll say: "It was worth every dollar!" So what are you waiting for? RAT-A-TAT-TAT, bitches!NOTE: If the Maxim jams at any time before you complete your 250-round belt, we pledge to refund your $1000 contribution pro rata ($4.00 per round) depending on how many rounds remain in the belt. We also pledge to lend you a Corrections Officer's service pistol to administer a final shot to the offender free of charge.
6. FLAMETHROWER - $2000 per execution
It's time for an old-time Texas barbecue! Take fiery revenge on your wife's lover by toasting him like a stuck hog. For just $2000, we will give you an ORIGINAL 1918 flamethrower with a full tank. Don't mess around with shovels or pistols. Burn the sumbitch alive! Light up the starter, twist on the fuel flow and reduce him into a pile of ashes. Don't worry: He won't turn into ashes before he struggles in vain to escape the flames. Torch him! If you really want to make him regret what he did, don't hose him down right away. Shoot a fireball above his head first. Make him sweat. Then shoot another burst to his left, then his right. Finally, give him just a little scorch. Make him live for a while with peeled-off skin. See how he likes being a victim now. See how fun flamethrowers can be? Nothing says "Ouch" like a full-body burn. And you can only give a full-body burn with a flamethrower. So get in there and start cookin'!7. BIG BERTHA - $5000 per execution
For Texans who have some money to spare, why not blast a criminal to smithereens? Chances are the offender changed your life forever. Chances are he stole something from you that you can never replace. You probably want to make his life as empty as yours, don't you? If this is the way you feel, BLOW HIM AWAY WITH A BIG BERTHA ARTILLERY GUN! When you pull the firing cord on this baby, there won't be anything left of the man who ruined your life. There won't be anything to bury. Nobody--and no body part--walks away from a 16-inch, 2100-pound high explosive direct hit. When you really just can't stand criminals, nothing says "I hate you" more than landing a Big Bertha shell on his head. For just $5000 (credit available), the Texas Corrections Department will set up a secure firing range, as well as the VINTAGE 1908 "Big Bertha" artillery gun. It will load the weapon, place the offender downrange and allow you to say "FIRE!" before pulling the firing cord. Then, via closed-circuit television, you can watch in slow-motion as the shell falls on the offender. One moment he is there. The next moment he is gone. We will even give you a complimentary DVD recording so you can watch the moment as often as you like for the rest of your life.In closing, I would like to personally thank Texas for its commitment to criminal justice. Here at the Department of Criminal Justice, I can assure you that we will continue to make executions accessible to the public in a way that is both emotionally satisfying and economically sensible.
Thanks again for your support.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
COMMERCE VERSUS JUSTICE : A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE
A REFLECTION
It took me a while to name this blog. I wanted to make it memorable. At the same time, I wanted it to reflect my life philosophy. I didn't want to sound pretentious; rather, I wanted to alert the reader to the big questions that animate me. And I also wanted to hint that I am at heart a "satirical rogue." That's why I added "free beer" at the end.
I chose "Reason," "Commerce" and "Justice" because those subjects focus my critical energy. Everything I write in some way relates to those three concepts. No matter what style I choose, those concepts unite my work.
Reason interests me because it encapsulates the human capacity for thought. Reason allegedly separates human beings from other animals. I write about reason's limitations, as well as its less-than-reasonable corollaries: Emotions, reflections, memories, impressions. My fixation on language also involves "reasoned" analysis. No matter the specific subject, however, I cast a critical eye on reason. I do not praise it as an inexorable pathway to truth. Indeed, I maintain a healthy skepticism for reason. I am a qualified empiricist: Reason is just one tool to help me understand existence. But I certainly don't put all my money on it. Too much unreasonable stuff happens in life. In that light, putting full trust in reason is not only unadvisable; it's also really disappointing.
Commerce offers me plentiful material for both satire and commentary. I define myself against commerce. Its values repel me. I do not like promoting myself. I do not like circulating resumes or kissing ass in interviews. I don't like wearing little costumes and going to work for private employers. I also don't like unfairness, inequality and hypocrisy. Commerce is rife with all three. Commerce also interests me because it is all about instrumentalism; and that clashes with my steadfast respect for the individual. In commerce, people play roles to make money: Master, servant, employer, employee, officer, director, customer, client…the list goes on. In the process, they lose their humanity. They also tend to exploit one another for crass personal gain. Commerce is the stage upon which to showcase my ruthless cynicism. It allows me to ironically brandish my own colors while criticizing things I fundamentally don't like.
Moreover, commerce is the perfect context in which to explore the tension between flexibility and principle. I often write about principles and honor. Commerce weighs against both. And sadly, my satires take doubled strength from the unfortunate truth that most people live for commerce rather than honor. Just listen to the radio or watch television. You will see and hear a lot more commercial messages than honorable ones.
Finally, justice draws me because it represents something larger than commerce. Justice has obsessed philosophers for millennia. I am just continuing down the road. In my work, justice stands as something hopeful, something better than ourselves, something transcendent, something to achieve. Justice is that great, intuitive feeling that something is right, not wrong. I do not identify a source for it. It just "is." I am no theologian. But in my heart I know when a situation is just. And I know when a situation is unjust. Injustice reeks. It seems to revolt against nature.
Justice is about ideals. It is about striving for something more than mere convenience or comfort. In that light, I use justice to champion my zeal for principle, honor, equality and "better" things. I use it to underline the key distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, because justice is largely subjective and cannot be objectively measured.
I also use justice as a backdrop to criticize the law. My fascination with ethics relates to my suspicion toward law. Justice and ethics go hand in hand. Ethics clashes with law. Therefore, law and justice clash, too. If you've spent any time studying my writing, you will know that I have very little respect for the law. If anything, I relegate law to the "commercial" category. And that it is ultimate insult, because law claims to advance justice. I make a few exceptions in my criticism for law, especially in cases where the law protects individual rights and enforces principles that restrain commerce. But I castigate everything else. In fact, law in most cases does not serve justice at all. To the contrary, in most cases it serves commerce--my perpetual theoretical foe.
In essence, then, my writing boils down to a battle between justice and commerce. I even thought about renaming my blog "Commerce Versus Justice," because that dichotomy really dominates my arguments. Something is either "just" or "just commercial." No matter what subject I address, chances are good that it involves hopeful ideals and crass realities. I lament the crass realities and wish for the hopeful ideals. The hopeful ideals are "justice." The crass realities are "commerce." In the "real world," commerce usually wins. In my eyes, it is usually an "unjust victory." And that "injustice" provides me fuel for criticism, commentary and satire.
But I decided against renaming my blog. Although I consistently allude to the struggle between commerce and justice, I refuse to abandon my commitment to "reason." There is a significant self-exploratory element to my writing. I write about people, their motivations, thoughts, dreams, hopes, happiness, unhappiness and machinations. While these things often involve commerce, they also implicate reason. I need to retain my focus on "reason" in order to continue writing about human beings--myself included. That is why I am going to keep my original three-part title. Well, four-part when you drink the free beer.
I sketch my thoughts about my blog's title in order to provide background for an important story. After all, one of the reasons I opened this blog was to therapeutically resolve difficulties that began to arise in my mind around 2006. In 2006, three critical events occurred in my life: (1) I finished my legal education; (2) My father died; and (3) I rejected law practice on principle. In essence, my life expectations completely changed. For one, I began thinking about death more than I ever had before. Second, after spending three years submerged in legal study, I recognized that I had no place in legal practice. That forced me to reevaluate my life in a very basic way. Beginning in 2006, I started to understand the distinction between commerce and justice. And when my father died, I used my reason to reflect on life. My philosophical fixation on reason, commerce and justice had begun.
I was not a child anymore. I was suddenly an adult. And life was full of trouble. Wrenching, inscrutable trouble.
In 2007, my focus on reason, commerce and justice sharpened even more. As I have written in several other contexts over the years, 2007 was the year in which my life partner, Steve, suffered a life-altering accident. I have not gone into great detail about the event. Neither has Steve. Yet I am painfully aware of it because I lived through its aftermath. And in truth, Steve's story perfectly illustrates the tension between commerce and justice. In this sense, Steve's story cemented my theoretical focus with a real life example.
Late on August 1, 2007, Steve went to work out at an all-night gym in Chicago. Back in those days, we used to go our own ways. We stayed out late alone sometimes and it never mattered. I went to bed about midnight. At about 2:15 AM, I got a phone call from the Illinois Masonic Hospital. "Are you Steve's partner?" someone asked. Half-asleep, I replied: "Yes. What is it?" "Steve has been badly burned. He wants you to visit him." I could not really understand what that meant, but I was stunned. "I'll be right over," I think I said. Then I hung up. I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute or two thinking. Then I got up and pulled on my jeans. I had no idea what was in store.
I got to the emergency room about 3:00 AM. Steve was laying on a cot, incoherent, drenched in sweat. They had wrapped a huge bulky bandage on his right arm. I could see dark-red bloodstains on the upper part. It looked like his skin had peeled right off midshoulder. Steve managed to tell me that he had been burned in the gym's steam room. He said he had just walked in when suddenly a jet of steam burst from the wall and scorched his arm.
I did not really know what to make of his story at the time. He was delirious. He must have been in shock. He talked about our dog and his clothes. I stayed with him in the emergency room for about two hours while the hospital arranged a transfer to a burn center outside town. I dozed for a while on a folding chair. I remember when the emergency room staff wheeled him away and put him in the back of the ambulance. He was smiling. He said he would be fine. He told me to go home and get some sleep. He told me to meet him at the hospital the next day. Then they closed the ambulance doors. The ambulance rolled off into the brightening summer dawn.
I had a meeting with my law school dean later that morning. I think I wanted to talk to him about getting a job with a federal judge. I somehow managed to attend the meeting with a straight face. At the time, I thought Steve would be all right, so I don't think the meeting went badly. The dean told me he would "put a word in" for me with several judges. I was out within an hour. I immediately hopped in the car and went to visit Steve.
Steve was fine when I arrived. They had his arm suspended above him in a sling. The doctors said they were going to perform skin graft surgery on him at 9 AM the next day, August 3. I spent about 8 hours in Steve's hospital room, assuring him that everything would be all right. Steve was cheery that day. He was happy that I was at his side. I went home about 8 PM. At 9:30 PM, he called me and thanked me for being at the hospital during the day. I told him I wouldn't abandon him for the world. I also told him I would be there as soon as he came out of the recovery room after his surgery. He cried when I said that.
I went to bed that night confident that Steve would be fine. I thought they would just do the surgery, then he would be home in a week or so. I was tired, sure, but I did not think life would be much different after that day.
I got up on August 3 waiting for a phone call to let me know I could visit Steve after his surgery. At about 11:00 AM, I got a call from a nurse who told me the surgeon needed to speak with me. I figured the surgeon was just going to tell me that the surgery had gone well and I could visit. So I called the surgeon back. I didn't reach him. After two more tries, I did reach him. He told me to come to the hospital right away. That was all he said.
I was a little nervous at this point. I had never really spent much time around hospitals. I did not know the procedure for getting news about surgeries. I thought maybe the surgeon could only tell me details about the surgery in person, not on the phone. So I headed back over to the hospital. It was about a 40-minute drive. I remember George Benson's "Affirmation" was on the radio during the trip.
I made it to the hospital and parked my car. First I went to the gift shop. I bought Steve a "Get Well Soon" balloon and a teddy bear. Then, holding the balloon in one hand, I went to the main desk. I said I was here I visit Steve. The guard tapped the keyboard and said: "Burn ICU. Seventh floor."
Now I was getting more nervous: Why is he in the ICU? Why isn't he in the recovery room?
I followed the signs to the Burn ICU. I went through a few automatic double doors into a large room with a nurse's station in the middle. Patient rooms lined the walls in a big circle around the station. I asked one nurse: "I'm here to see Steve."
She pointed to a room on my left. It was full of doctors, nurses, interns, even executives in suits. I pushed my way in. Steve was unconscious on a bed, angled up. He was on a respirator. A thick silver tube stretched from the respirator into a hole punched through his throat. There were two tubes lined into his nostrils. More tubes funneled out from his arms. Wires were tacked on to his chest and legs. There must have been about twenty wires and tubes attached to his body. His mouth was wide open and his eyes were as if glued shut. His tongue was protruding from his mouth slightly and it looked completely parched. There was blood caked on the edges of his lips. Bleeping, whirring machines and monitors ringed his bed.
I let go of the balloon and covered my mouth with my hands. I left the room for minute to reflect on what I was seeing. At that moment, the anesthesiologist approached me and explained nervously that something went horribly wrong during the surgery. Apparently, Steve had a strong reaction to a particular anesthesia and it stopped his heart. He told me that he had jumped on top of Steve to perform CPR and that he finally got his pulse back after 53 seconds. After reviving him, they stabilized his blood pressure and rushed him to the ICU. He told me he was in an induced coma. They wanted to keep him motionless until they could place a stent in his heart. Apparently, his body had convulsed uncontrollably after his heart stopped.
I could not believe what I was hearing and seeing. Here was the man I had loved for seven years, reduced before me to a motionless vegetable. Here was the man who just two days before was strong, enterprising and courageous; and now he was on the verge of death. I felt utterly broken. I immediately thought about my father. Was I going to lose Steve, too, just a year later? What was this life? What was the point? Was I doomed to lose everyone I loved?
At that moment, I thought that Steve would die. At the very least, I thought he would never recover his brain function. The doctors were all very grave. They said: "We have no idea what will happen with him. But he did go without oxygen to the brain for over a minute." I just paced around the ICU all day. I made phone calls. Our best friend was flying in from New York that day. I took a break and picked him up at the airport. That was a good distraction; I needed support that day, and he gave it to me. We spent the rest of the day staring hopelessly at Steve on the respirator. We worried every time a machine made a noise. Finally, we left at about 8 PM.
Over the next two days, Steve was in critical condition. He could not open his eyes. I just sat at his side for hours at a time listening to the respirator and the other beeping machines that kept him alive.
On the third day, however, Steve suddenly opened his eyes. The paralytic had worn off. He looked around as if in a panic. Then he turned and saw me. His face glowed for an instant, then it crumpled into tears. He grabbed for my hand as the nurses struggled to keep all the tubes attached to his body. Tears streamed down my face. I clenched his hand and told him everything would be all right. I tried to explain what had happened, but it was obvious he could not comprehend what was wrong. He could not speak. He could mouth words, but the tracheal tube blocked his throat. Still, as pitiful as he appeared that day, I knew he would survive. It was a huge relief.
Ultimately, Steve stayed 33 more days in the hospital. I was there every day from morning to night. He got the stent he needed in his heart. He underwent three more skin graft surgeries to repair the arm. They had to shear skin off his thighs to replant it on his arm. At one point, the graft did not take; so they had to put cadaver skin on his arm as a "bedding." Toward the end of his stay, they took out the tracheal tube and he could speak again. His voice had changed and he lisped, but he could speak. There had been no brain damage. He was handicapped and slower, but he had survived. He went home September 5, 2007. The hospital bill came to something around $2,000,000.
In the months that followed, Steve pursued a legal case against the gym that caused his injuries. We hired a law firm to investigate and prosecute the claim. As a former trial lawyer, the case seemed a winner to me. There was nothing wrong with his arm before he went into the steam room on August 2. When he came out, he was permanently injured. His "special damages" amounted to at least $2,000,000, not to mention the "loss of a normal life," "disfigurement," "pain and suffering" and "mental anguish." There was no quarrel that the gym's facilities caused these injuries and Steve had no control over those facilities. Based on my experience, I estimated Steve's case at around $7,000,000.
Despite these compelling facts, the case went poorly. For its part, the gym denied it had done anything wrong. It actually came forward with some questionable "incident reports" that said that Steve "laid down in front of the steam vent" and "caused his own injury." The gym manager--who was not there on August 2--claimed that Steve must have "passed out in the steam room," then fallen in front of the vent for a long time. Yet the medical records all corroborated Steve's story. And the emergency responders who took him from the gym said nothing about "fainting" or "falling." They did not treat him as they would have treated someone who had just fainted. Steve's surgeon even said there was no evidence of a fall.
Still, our lawyers found the gym's self-serving reports troublesome. For some reason, they thought that if the gym's story were true, then Steve could not win the case. Yet Steve always told the same story about how he was injured: He walked into the steam room and a jet of steam suddenly burst from the wall. The gym did not provide warnings anywhere about steam vents. It was a very big steam room with several blind corners and crannies. I had been in it myself and often found it difficult to determine where steam was coming from. That is why it did not surprise me when Steve said the steam took him by surprise.
And no matter what story people believed, the logic of the case seemed obvious to me: You shouldn't allow access to something on your property that can cause an injury as bad as Steve's. It's almost like letting a wild animal loose in your house during a dinner party.
But our lawyers did not see it that way. They said they could never sell Steve's story to a jury. They said they could not convince people that steam could emanate from the wall when the pictures showed the vents were only at ankle level. They did not acknowledge the fact, however, that they took the pictures almost a year after the event. Who knows what "improvements" the gym had made in the intervening time.
Yet all these rationalizations took a back seat to an even more compelling problem for our lawyers: They discovered that the gym did not have any liability insurance. Liability insurance means that an insurance company pays if someone gets injured on your land. If you don't have liability insurance, an injured person can go directly after your assets. But if you have no assets--or if the assets are insufficient to cover the injury--it makes little sense for an injured person to pursue you. After all, it takes years to win a judgment, let alone collect on one. Insurance companies shorten the time needed to get money from an accident. Without insurance, most injury lawyers don't waste their time on cases, even if they are meritorious. After all, they don't get paid until they win. If they spend 5 years working a case, then discover no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they will have wasted 5 years for nothing. That is a terrifying prospect for a lawyer trying to pay his rent.
So our lawyers fired us. They never said that the gym's insurance situation was the reason they turned us away. But it was obvious to me. The gym got away scot-free because it strategically decided not to buy liability insurance. The gym knew that no personal injury lawyer would waste his time pursuing an entity without insurance, so it just did not buy insurance. In essence, it insured itself against lawsuits by refusing to insure. It understood that civil litigation is a time-consuming, expensive business. So it correctly guessed that most lawyers would avoid a case that does not promise a quick insurance payout.
In short, the gym acted in a commercially prudent manner. It minimized its liabilities. It saved money.
But Steve suffered injustice for it. Steve's life changed because of the gym's conduct. It offered its facilities to the public for a fee. Those facilities nearly killed Steve and gutted his entire existence, not to mention mine. And due to the gym's strategic failure to buy liability insurance, Steve will not even receive the psychic satisfaction that the law avenged the hurt he endured. Put simply, Steve did not get justice. The law failed him.
Or did it? Steve's case confirms me that the law does not serve justice. If it did, lawyers would have flocked to represent him. Yet none did. From an intuitive perspective, Steve suffered a gross injustice due to another's negligence. No one should ever have to endure such clear wrongs in life.
But the lawyers did not flock to his aid because justice does not motivate them. Avenging injustice, after all, does not necessarily pay the bills. Paying the bills is a quintessentially commercial function. And lawyers did not take Steve's case because they could not assure themselves that it would be "worth the investment." It did not matter that he suffered injustice. Rather, his case was not "commercially viable" because the gym did not have insurance.
In Steve's case, commerce won out over justice. That's a lesson in law for you.
I have no more illusions about the law. It is a business like any other. If a case doesn’t promise a quick profit, no lawyer will take it, even if a person has suffered obvious injustice.
It took me a while to name this blog. I wanted to make it memorable. At the same time, I wanted it to reflect my life philosophy. I didn't want to sound pretentious; rather, I wanted to alert the reader to the big questions that animate me. And I also wanted to hint that I am at heart a "satirical rogue." That's why I added "free beer" at the end.
I chose "Reason," "Commerce" and "Justice" because those subjects focus my critical energy. Everything I write in some way relates to those three concepts. No matter what style I choose, those concepts unite my work.
Reason interests me because it encapsulates the human capacity for thought. Reason allegedly separates human beings from other animals. I write about reason's limitations, as well as its less-than-reasonable corollaries: Emotions, reflections, memories, impressions. My fixation on language also involves "reasoned" analysis. No matter the specific subject, however, I cast a critical eye on reason. I do not praise it as an inexorable pathway to truth. Indeed, I maintain a healthy skepticism for reason. I am a qualified empiricist: Reason is just one tool to help me understand existence. But I certainly don't put all my money on it. Too much unreasonable stuff happens in life. In that light, putting full trust in reason is not only unadvisable; it's also really disappointing.
Commerce offers me plentiful material for both satire and commentary. I define myself against commerce. Its values repel me. I do not like promoting myself. I do not like circulating resumes or kissing ass in interviews. I don't like wearing little costumes and going to work for private employers. I also don't like unfairness, inequality and hypocrisy. Commerce is rife with all three. Commerce also interests me because it is all about instrumentalism; and that clashes with my steadfast respect for the individual. In commerce, people play roles to make money: Master, servant, employer, employee, officer, director, customer, client…the list goes on. In the process, they lose their humanity. They also tend to exploit one another for crass personal gain. Commerce is the stage upon which to showcase my ruthless cynicism. It allows me to ironically brandish my own colors while criticizing things I fundamentally don't like.
Moreover, commerce is the perfect context in which to explore the tension between flexibility and principle. I often write about principles and honor. Commerce weighs against both. And sadly, my satires take doubled strength from the unfortunate truth that most people live for commerce rather than honor. Just listen to the radio or watch television. You will see and hear a lot more commercial messages than honorable ones.
Finally, justice draws me because it represents something larger than commerce. Justice has obsessed philosophers for millennia. I am just continuing down the road. In my work, justice stands as something hopeful, something better than ourselves, something transcendent, something to achieve. Justice is that great, intuitive feeling that something is right, not wrong. I do not identify a source for it. It just "is." I am no theologian. But in my heart I know when a situation is just. And I know when a situation is unjust. Injustice reeks. It seems to revolt against nature.
Justice is about ideals. It is about striving for something more than mere convenience or comfort. In that light, I use justice to champion my zeal for principle, honor, equality and "better" things. I use it to underline the key distinction between subjectivity and objectivity, because justice is largely subjective and cannot be objectively measured.
I also use justice as a backdrop to criticize the law. My fascination with ethics relates to my suspicion toward law. Justice and ethics go hand in hand. Ethics clashes with law. Therefore, law and justice clash, too. If you've spent any time studying my writing, you will know that I have very little respect for the law. If anything, I relegate law to the "commercial" category. And that it is ultimate insult, because law claims to advance justice. I make a few exceptions in my criticism for law, especially in cases where the law protects individual rights and enforces principles that restrain commerce. But I castigate everything else. In fact, law in most cases does not serve justice at all. To the contrary, in most cases it serves commerce--my perpetual theoretical foe.
In essence, then, my writing boils down to a battle between justice and commerce. I even thought about renaming my blog "Commerce Versus Justice," because that dichotomy really dominates my arguments. Something is either "just" or "just commercial." No matter what subject I address, chances are good that it involves hopeful ideals and crass realities. I lament the crass realities and wish for the hopeful ideals. The hopeful ideals are "justice." The crass realities are "commerce." In the "real world," commerce usually wins. In my eyes, it is usually an "unjust victory." And that "injustice" provides me fuel for criticism, commentary and satire.
But I decided against renaming my blog. Although I consistently allude to the struggle between commerce and justice, I refuse to abandon my commitment to "reason." There is a significant self-exploratory element to my writing. I write about people, their motivations, thoughts, dreams, hopes, happiness, unhappiness and machinations. While these things often involve commerce, they also implicate reason. I need to retain my focus on "reason" in order to continue writing about human beings--myself included. That is why I am going to keep my original three-part title. Well, four-part when you drink the free beer.
I sketch my thoughts about my blog's title in order to provide background for an important story. After all, one of the reasons I opened this blog was to therapeutically resolve difficulties that began to arise in my mind around 2006. In 2006, three critical events occurred in my life: (1) I finished my legal education; (2) My father died; and (3) I rejected law practice on principle. In essence, my life expectations completely changed. For one, I began thinking about death more than I ever had before. Second, after spending three years submerged in legal study, I recognized that I had no place in legal practice. That forced me to reevaluate my life in a very basic way. Beginning in 2006, I started to understand the distinction between commerce and justice. And when my father died, I used my reason to reflect on life. My philosophical fixation on reason, commerce and justice had begun.
I was not a child anymore. I was suddenly an adult. And life was full of trouble. Wrenching, inscrutable trouble.
In 2007, my focus on reason, commerce and justice sharpened even more. As I have written in several other contexts over the years, 2007 was the year in which my life partner, Steve, suffered a life-altering accident. I have not gone into great detail about the event. Neither has Steve. Yet I am painfully aware of it because I lived through its aftermath. And in truth, Steve's story perfectly illustrates the tension between commerce and justice. In this sense, Steve's story cemented my theoretical focus with a real life example.
Late on August 1, 2007, Steve went to work out at an all-night gym in Chicago. Back in those days, we used to go our own ways. We stayed out late alone sometimes and it never mattered. I went to bed about midnight. At about 2:15 AM, I got a phone call from the Illinois Masonic Hospital. "Are you Steve's partner?" someone asked. Half-asleep, I replied: "Yes. What is it?" "Steve has been badly burned. He wants you to visit him." I could not really understand what that meant, but I was stunned. "I'll be right over," I think I said. Then I hung up. I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute or two thinking. Then I got up and pulled on my jeans. I had no idea what was in store.
I got to the emergency room about 3:00 AM. Steve was laying on a cot, incoherent, drenched in sweat. They had wrapped a huge bulky bandage on his right arm. I could see dark-red bloodstains on the upper part. It looked like his skin had peeled right off midshoulder. Steve managed to tell me that he had been burned in the gym's steam room. He said he had just walked in when suddenly a jet of steam burst from the wall and scorched his arm.
I did not really know what to make of his story at the time. He was delirious. He must have been in shock. He talked about our dog and his clothes. I stayed with him in the emergency room for about two hours while the hospital arranged a transfer to a burn center outside town. I dozed for a while on a folding chair. I remember when the emergency room staff wheeled him away and put him in the back of the ambulance. He was smiling. He said he would be fine. He told me to go home and get some sleep. He told me to meet him at the hospital the next day. Then they closed the ambulance doors. The ambulance rolled off into the brightening summer dawn.
I had a meeting with my law school dean later that morning. I think I wanted to talk to him about getting a job with a federal judge. I somehow managed to attend the meeting with a straight face. At the time, I thought Steve would be all right, so I don't think the meeting went badly. The dean told me he would "put a word in" for me with several judges. I was out within an hour. I immediately hopped in the car and went to visit Steve.
Steve was fine when I arrived. They had his arm suspended above him in a sling. The doctors said they were going to perform skin graft surgery on him at 9 AM the next day, August 3. I spent about 8 hours in Steve's hospital room, assuring him that everything would be all right. Steve was cheery that day. He was happy that I was at his side. I went home about 8 PM. At 9:30 PM, he called me and thanked me for being at the hospital during the day. I told him I wouldn't abandon him for the world. I also told him I would be there as soon as he came out of the recovery room after his surgery. He cried when I said that.
I went to bed that night confident that Steve would be fine. I thought they would just do the surgery, then he would be home in a week or so. I was tired, sure, but I did not think life would be much different after that day.
I got up on August 3 waiting for a phone call to let me know I could visit Steve after his surgery. At about 11:00 AM, I got a call from a nurse who told me the surgeon needed to speak with me. I figured the surgeon was just going to tell me that the surgery had gone well and I could visit. So I called the surgeon back. I didn't reach him. After two more tries, I did reach him. He told me to come to the hospital right away. That was all he said.
I was a little nervous at this point. I had never really spent much time around hospitals. I did not know the procedure for getting news about surgeries. I thought maybe the surgeon could only tell me details about the surgery in person, not on the phone. So I headed back over to the hospital. It was about a 40-minute drive. I remember George Benson's "Affirmation" was on the radio during the trip.
I made it to the hospital and parked my car. First I went to the gift shop. I bought Steve a "Get Well Soon" balloon and a teddy bear. Then, holding the balloon in one hand, I went to the main desk. I said I was here I visit Steve. The guard tapped the keyboard and said: "Burn ICU. Seventh floor."
Now I was getting more nervous: Why is he in the ICU? Why isn't he in the recovery room?
I followed the signs to the Burn ICU. I went through a few automatic double doors into a large room with a nurse's station in the middle. Patient rooms lined the walls in a big circle around the station. I asked one nurse: "I'm here to see Steve."
She pointed to a room on my left. It was full of doctors, nurses, interns, even executives in suits. I pushed my way in. Steve was unconscious on a bed, angled up. He was on a respirator. A thick silver tube stretched from the respirator into a hole punched through his throat. There were two tubes lined into his nostrils. More tubes funneled out from his arms. Wires were tacked on to his chest and legs. There must have been about twenty wires and tubes attached to his body. His mouth was wide open and his eyes were as if glued shut. His tongue was protruding from his mouth slightly and it looked completely parched. There was blood caked on the edges of his lips. Bleeping, whirring machines and monitors ringed his bed.
I let go of the balloon and covered my mouth with my hands. I left the room for minute to reflect on what I was seeing. At that moment, the anesthesiologist approached me and explained nervously that something went horribly wrong during the surgery. Apparently, Steve had a strong reaction to a particular anesthesia and it stopped his heart. He told me that he had jumped on top of Steve to perform CPR and that he finally got his pulse back after 53 seconds. After reviving him, they stabilized his blood pressure and rushed him to the ICU. He told me he was in an induced coma. They wanted to keep him motionless until they could place a stent in his heart. Apparently, his body had convulsed uncontrollably after his heart stopped.
I could not believe what I was hearing and seeing. Here was the man I had loved for seven years, reduced before me to a motionless vegetable. Here was the man who just two days before was strong, enterprising and courageous; and now he was on the verge of death. I felt utterly broken. I immediately thought about my father. Was I going to lose Steve, too, just a year later? What was this life? What was the point? Was I doomed to lose everyone I loved?
At that moment, I thought that Steve would die. At the very least, I thought he would never recover his brain function. The doctors were all very grave. They said: "We have no idea what will happen with him. But he did go without oxygen to the brain for over a minute." I just paced around the ICU all day. I made phone calls. Our best friend was flying in from New York that day. I took a break and picked him up at the airport. That was a good distraction; I needed support that day, and he gave it to me. We spent the rest of the day staring hopelessly at Steve on the respirator. We worried every time a machine made a noise. Finally, we left at about 8 PM.
Over the next two days, Steve was in critical condition. He could not open his eyes. I just sat at his side for hours at a time listening to the respirator and the other beeping machines that kept him alive.
On the third day, however, Steve suddenly opened his eyes. The paralytic had worn off. He looked around as if in a panic. Then he turned and saw me. His face glowed for an instant, then it crumpled into tears. He grabbed for my hand as the nurses struggled to keep all the tubes attached to his body. Tears streamed down my face. I clenched his hand and told him everything would be all right. I tried to explain what had happened, but it was obvious he could not comprehend what was wrong. He could not speak. He could mouth words, but the tracheal tube blocked his throat. Still, as pitiful as he appeared that day, I knew he would survive. It was a huge relief.
Ultimately, Steve stayed 33 more days in the hospital. I was there every day from morning to night. He got the stent he needed in his heart. He underwent three more skin graft surgeries to repair the arm. They had to shear skin off his thighs to replant it on his arm. At one point, the graft did not take; so they had to put cadaver skin on his arm as a "bedding." Toward the end of his stay, they took out the tracheal tube and he could speak again. His voice had changed and he lisped, but he could speak. There had been no brain damage. He was handicapped and slower, but he had survived. He went home September 5, 2007. The hospital bill came to something around $2,000,000.
In the months that followed, Steve pursued a legal case against the gym that caused his injuries. We hired a law firm to investigate and prosecute the claim. As a former trial lawyer, the case seemed a winner to me. There was nothing wrong with his arm before he went into the steam room on August 2. When he came out, he was permanently injured. His "special damages" amounted to at least $2,000,000, not to mention the "loss of a normal life," "disfigurement," "pain and suffering" and "mental anguish." There was no quarrel that the gym's facilities caused these injuries and Steve had no control over those facilities. Based on my experience, I estimated Steve's case at around $7,000,000.
Despite these compelling facts, the case went poorly. For its part, the gym denied it had done anything wrong. It actually came forward with some questionable "incident reports" that said that Steve "laid down in front of the steam vent" and "caused his own injury." The gym manager--who was not there on August 2--claimed that Steve must have "passed out in the steam room," then fallen in front of the vent for a long time. Yet the medical records all corroborated Steve's story. And the emergency responders who took him from the gym said nothing about "fainting" or "falling." They did not treat him as they would have treated someone who had just fainted. Steve's surgeon even said there was no evidence of a fall.
Still, our lawyers found the gym's self-serving reports troublesome. For some reason, they thought that if the gym's story were true, then Steve could not win the case. Yet Steve always told the same story about how he was injured: He walked into the steam room and a jet of steam suddenly burst from the wall. The gym did not provide warnings anywhere about steam vents. It was a very big steam room with several blind corners and crannies. I had been in it myself and often found it difficult to determine where steam was coming from. That is why it did not surprise me when Steve said the steam took him by surprise.
And no matter what story people believed, the logic of the case seemed obvious to me: You shouldn't allow access to something on your property that can cause an injury as bad as Steve's. It's almost like letting a wild animal loose in your house during a dinner party.
But our lawyers did not see it that way. They said they could never sell Steve's story to a jury. They said they could not convince people that steam could emanate from the wall when the pictures showed the vents were only at ankle level. They did not acknowledge the fact, however, that they took the pictures almost a year after the event. Who knows what "improvements" the gym had made in the intervening time.
Yet all these rationalizations took a back seat to an even more compelling problem for our lawyers: They discovered that the gym did not have any liability insurance. Liability insurance means that an insurance company pays if someone gets injured on your land. If you don't have liability insurance, an injured person can go directly after your assets. But if you have no assets--or if the assets are insufficient to cover the injury--it makes little sense for an injured person to pursue you. After all, it takes years to win a judgment, let alone collect on one. Insurance companies shorten the time needed to get money from an accident. Without insurance, most injury lawyers don't waste their time on cases, even if they are meritorious. After all, they don't get paid until they win. If they spend 5 years working a case, then discover no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they will have wasted 5 years for nothing. That is a terrifying prospect for a lawyer trying to pay his rent.
So our lawyers fired us. They never said that the gym's insurance situation was the reason they turned us away. But it was obvious to me. The gym got away scot-free because it strategically decided not to buy liability insurance. The gym knew that no personal injury lawyer would waste his time pursuing an entity without insurance, so it just did not buy insurance. In essence, it insured itself against lawsuits by refusing to insure. It understood that civil litigation is a time-consuming, expensive business. So it correctly guessed that most lawyers would avoid a case that does not promise a quick insurance payout.
In short, the gym acted in a commercially prudent manner. It minimized its liabilities. It saved money.
But Steve suffered injustice for it. Steve's life changed because of the gym's conduct. It offered its facilities to the public for a fee. Those facilities nearly killed Steve and gutted his entire existence, not to mention mine. And due to the gym's strategic failure to buy liability insurance, Steve will not even receive the psychic satisfaction that the law avenged the hurt he endured. Put simply, Steve did not get justice. The law failed him.
Or did it? Steve's case confirms me that the law does not serve justice. If it did, lawyers would have flocked to represent him. Yet none did. From an intuitive perspective, Steve suffered a gross injustice due to another's negligence. No one should ever have to endure such clear wrongs in life.
But the lawyers did not flock to his aid because justice does not motivate them. Avenging injustice, after all, does not necessarily pay the bills. Paying the bills is a quintessentially commercial function. And lawyers did not take Steve's case because they could not assure themselves that it would be "worth the investment." It did not matter that he suffered injustice. Rather, his case was not "commercially viable" because the gym did not have insurance.
In Steve's case, commerce won out over justice. That's a lesson in law for you.
I have no more illusions about the law. It is a business like any other. If a case doesn’t promise a quick profit, no lawyer will take it, even if a person has suffered obvious injustice.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
LIFE, DEATH, ABORTION, SCARFACE AND HAMLET
AN ESSAY
I grew up in a ferociously pro-choice household. From my earliest memory, my mother told me that abortion was a woman's right. It was her choice to decide what to do with her body. Those ideas filtered into my mind. I never thought much about it. I never thought abortion amounted to murder. In fact, I remember my mother used to say: "It's nothing but a clump of cells. It's not even a person. You're not hurting anyone when you pull it out of there."
I was satisfied with her explanation. It passed my empirical scrutiny. After all, I had no memory about my own life before I was three years old, let alone memory about my time in the womb. I recalled no pain from that time. In that light, I perceived no moral problem in terminating a pregnancy: It just didn't hurt anyone.
I could not identify with a fetus; I may have once been a fetus, but if someone had rooted me out before I was born, I would not have known the better. There seemed to be no suffering in abortion. I had no problem with it.
When I was a little older, my mother told me that she had had an abortion three years after I was born. That made me understand why she so fiercely advocated abortion rights: She had needed an abortion and she got one. She told me she could not have supported another child. I completely agreed with her. I did not want another sibling, either. I liked my mother's undivided attention. So we both had some self-interest in our beliefs about abortion. I never regretted the idea that I "may have lost a brother or sister." I supported my mother's decision. In fact, I fully endorsed her main argument: That no one has a right to tell a woman what she should do with her own body.
I carried these beliefs with me to law school. They informed my understanding about the Constitution. I read Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), as if I already knew what it said. In essence, Roe held that a woman has a constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy at any time before "viability." It reaffirmed my own belief that the State has no right to interfere with a woman's reproductive choices because we all have a right to "privacy" in our bodies.
But there were people in my class who strongly disagreed with Roe. They thought that abortion was a crime. They thought that there was such a thing as "potential life," and that the State had a right to protect "lives that did not yet exist." My own values clashed with that argument. I had always believed--thanks to my mother's explanations and my own empirical conclusions--that fetuses were not people. They were just "clumps of cells." I did not consider them "alive." And even if they represented "potential life," that concept was far too nebulous for me to defend.
Still, many people vociferously believe the opposite. In fact, there are probably some people out there who would kill me for my belief that abortion is acceptable in virtually every circumstance.
In recent years, I have been obsessed with death. When my father died suddenly in 2006, it forced me to reevaluate every assumption I had about life. I pondered life's meaning, its "rewards" and its expectations. After all, I saw that life can end without warning. And all the things that we learn to expect from life can evaporate in an instant. We are all just going to die--in fact, we might even die tomorrow--so why stress out about little things, like careers and money? What do they gain us in the end? Why waste time on them? Why waste a single day on something unappetizing? If all we have are our bodies, why torture ourselves doing things we would rather not do?
I developed a contempt for life. I am still quite contemptuous about it. What does life really have to offer, anyway? Food? Sleep? Orgasms? Comforts? Feather beds? Money? Joys? Is this everything? Are we mere slaves to our senses until the day our senses cease functioning? What difference will food and orgasms make once we die? None, none, none. In fact, those are only the good sensory things that can happen to us in life. More often, life inflicts unbelievable sensory suffering on us. We endure physical pain and emotional turmoil. We endure heartache, delay, disappointment, rejection, boredom, stress, betrayal, mockery, abuse and frustration. The bad moments usually far outnumber the good ones. Then we die. Taken as a whole, then, life is a losing proposition.
That's not to say that I do not sometimes like living. It feels good to eat, sleep, have sex, talk with friends, love people, be loved, sit in a comfortable chair, listen to music and read books. I like being alive in those moments. But is this all there is? And do I have to endure all the bad stuff for these few good moments?
Many others have come to these same sad conclusions about human life. In Brian de Palma's Scarface (1983), drug kingpin Tony Montana achieves the height of earthly success. He has a beautiful wife. He has untold riches. He has a huge villa in Florida. He has a massive hot tub. He throws mammoth parties. He wants for nothing. Yet after an argument at an expensive restaurant one night, he turns to his best friend and despondently says: "Is this it? Is this what it's all about, Manny? Eating, drinking, fucking, sucking, snorting, then what? You're 50 with a bag for a belly."
Tony Montana developed a contempt for life. He did not care about what it had to offer, even though he had it all. And he did not mind dying after he saw how little life really matters.
Shakespeare's Hamlet thought the same thing. In several scenes, Hamlet rues the crude banality of human existence. Like Tony Montana, he says: "What is a man,/ If his chief good and market of his time/ Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more." Hamlet, Act IV, sc. iv, l. 31-33. Hamlet understands--as I do--that life's so-called "good things" add up to little more than "[b]estial oblivion." Act IV, sc. iv, l. 38. In fact, Hamlet grows so disenchanted with life's petty potential rewards that he prefers death to living: "O that this too too solid flesh would melt,/ Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!/ Or that the Everlasting had not fixt his/ Canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!/ How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/ Seem to me all the uses of this world!/ Fie on't! O, fie! 'tis an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed; things rank and gross in/ nature/ Possess it merely." Act I, sc. ii, l. 129-138. Later, he dismisses the world as "no/ other thing [] than a foul and pestilent/ congregation of vapors." Act II, sc. ii, l. 308-309. And he dismisses man, too: "What piece of work is/ man!...what is/ this quintessence of dust?" Act II, sc. ii, l. 309-310, 314-315.
Is this what it's all about, Manny? A "quintessence of dust?" "Bestial oblivion?" An existence "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable?" "An unweeded garden that grows to seed?" "A foul and pestilent congregation of vapors?" Taken in the abstract, Hamlet is dead on. Life pretty much sucks. And even the good stuff is a pretty poor palliative for the endless difficulties it inflicts upon us.
I am permissive toward abortion because I really could care less whether another person enters this brutal world. After all, earthly life offers little more than "bestial oblivion," anyway, so why should I care whether some new beast gets to eat, sleep or feed? It just doesn't matter to me. If a woman chooses to end her pregnancy, good for her: She's saving the little tyke a whole lot of trouble.
But what about abortion opponents? They must have different expectations from life than I do. They must not really ponder human existence. They must genuinely like what life has to offer. They must really like eating, sleeping, fucking, sucking and snorting, even if they wind up with bags for bellies. After all, they are willing to kill doctors in order to defend potential life. Let me say that again: Potential life. They like life so much that they are willing to commit murder so that a clump of cells may one day eat, sleep, fuck, suck and snort. They are committed not just to an existing person's right to eat, sleep, fuck, suck and snort. They are also committed to a non-existent person's right to do so. Now that shows real dedication to earthly life. It's a dedication I certainly do not share. To each his own, I suppose.
In my experience, life is no bowl of cherries. It is hard. It is full of misery and pain. When we do enjoy good moments, they are precious. But how rare they are! And viewed in the abstract, how petty! Is this why we're alive, then? To undergo endless difficulty punctuated by a few slender moments of bestial joy? We cling to life like any other mammal. We fear death because we do not know what awaits us. So, as Hamlet says, we "bear those ills we have/ [rather] than fly to others that we know not of." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i. l. 83-84.
We are the only ones who can create meaning in our lives. Hamlet found meaning by finding a purpose: Taking revenge for his murdered father. He did not seek mere "bestial oblivion" or "worldly comfort." He impressed his soul on his existence to transcend his "mortal coil." His life took on greater significance. And fittingly, he died in the process.
I have not died yet. I know that life does not offer much. Yet I try to do what Hamlet did. I am trying to live for something greater than bestial oblivion. I like bestial oblivion as much as the next man (beast). But my real joy flows from the idea that I am doing something beyond the flesh: Writing. I had to find something to make this maddening journey bearable. It was my choice.
Even then, I do not hold my own life in high esteem. On the whole, life is more trouble than it's worth. Only instinctual self-preservation holds me in check.
So from my view, so what if a woman gets an abortion? I have no philosophical problem with any activity that saves another from this harrowing sphere of pain.
I grew up in a ferociously pro-choice household. From my earliest memory, my mother told me that abortion was a woman's right. It was her choice to decide what to do with her body. Those ideas filtered into my mind. I never thought much about it. I never thought abortion amounted to murder. In fact, I remember my mother used to say: "It's nothing but a clump of cells. It's not even a person. You're not hurting anyone when you pull it out of there."
I was satisfied with her explanation. It passed my empirical scrutiny. After all, I had no memory about my own life before I was three years old, let alone memory about my time in the womb. I recalled no pain from that time. In that light, I perceived no moral problem in terminating a pregnancy: It just didn't hurt anyone.
I could not identify with a fetus; I may have once been a fetus, but if someone had rooted me out before I was born, I would not have known the better. There seemed to be no suffering in abortion. I had no problem with it.
When I was a little older, my mother told me that she had had an abortion three years after I was born. That made me understand why she so fiercely advocated abortion rights: She had needed an abortion and she got one. She told me she could not have supported another child. I completely agreed with her. I did not want another sibling, either. I liked my mother's undivided attention. So we both had some self-interest in our beliefs about abortion. I never regretted the idea that I "may have lost a brother or sister." I supported my mother's decision. In fact, I fully endorsed her main argument: That no one has a right to tell a woman what she should do with her own body.
I carried these beliefs with me to law school. They informed my understanding about the Constitution. I read Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), as if I already knew what it said. In essence, Roe held that a woman has a constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy at any time before "viability." It reaffirmed my own belief that the State has no right to interfere with a woman's reproductive choices because we all have a right to "privacy" in our bodies.
But there were people in my class who strongly disagreed with Roe. They thought that abortion was a crime. They thought that there was such a thing as "potential life," and that the State had a right to protect "lives that did not yet exist." My own values clashed with that argument. I had always believed--thanks to my mother's explanations and my own empirical conclusions--that fetuses were not people. They were just "clumps of cells." I did not consider them "alive." And even if they represented "potential life," that concept was far too nebulous for me to defend.
Still, many people vociferously believe the opposite. In fact, there are probably some people out there who would kill me for my belief that abortion is acceptable in virtually every circumstance.
In recent years, I have been obsessed with death. When my father died suddenly in 2006, it forced me to reevaluate every assumption I had about life. I pondered life's meaning, its "rewards" and its expectations. After all, I saw that life can end without warning. And all the things that we learn to expect from life can evaporate in an instant. We are all just going to die--in fact, we might even die tomorrow--so why stress out about little things, like careers and money? What do they gain us in the end? Why waste time on them? Why waste a single day on something unappetizing? If all we have are our bodies, why torture ourselves doing things we would rather not do?
I developed a contempt for life. I am still quite contemptuous about it. What does life really have to offer, anyway? Food? Sleep? Orgasms? Comforts? Feather beds? Money? Joys? Is this everything? Are we mere slaves to our senses until the day our senses cease functioning? What difference will food and orgasms make once we die? None, none, none. In fact, those are only the good sensory things that can happen to us in life. More often, life inflicts unbelievable sensory suffering on us. We endure physical pain and emotional turmoil. We endure heartache, delay, disappointment, rejection, boredom, stress, betrayal, mockery, abuse and frustration. The bad moments usually far outnumber the good ones. Then we die. Taken as a whole, then, life is a losing proposition.
That's not to say that I do not sometimes like living. It feels good to eat, sleep, have sex, talk with friends, love people, be loved, sit in a comfortable chair, listen to music and read books. I like being alive in those moments. But is this all there is? And do I have to endure all the bad stuff for these few good moments?
Many others have come to these same sad conclusions about human life. In Brian de Palma's Scarface (1983), drug kingpin Tony Montana achieves the height of earthly success. He has a beautiful wife. He has untold riches. He has a huge villa in Florida. He has a massive hot tub. He throws mammoth parties. He wants for nothing. Yet after an argument at an expensive restaurant one night, he turns to his best friend and despondently says: "Is this it? Is this what it's all about, Manny? Eating, drinking, fucking, sucking, snorting, then what? You're 50 with a bag for a belly."
Tony Montana developed a contempt for life. He did not care about what it had to offer, even though he had it all. And he did not mind dying after he saw how little life really matters.
Shakespeare's Hamlet thought the same thing. In several scenes, Hamlet rues the crude banality of human existence. Like Tony Montana, he says: "What is a man,/ If his chief good and market of his time/ Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more." Hamlet, Act IV, sc. iv, l. 31-33. Hamlet understands--as I do--that life's so-called "good things" add up to little more than "[b]estial oblivion." Act IV, sc. iv, l. 38. In fact, Hamlet grows so disenchanted with life's petty potential rewards that he prefers death to living: "O that this too too solid flesh would melt,/ Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!/ Or that the Everlasting had not fixt his/ Canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!/ How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/ Seem to me all the uses of this world!/ Fie on't! O, fie! 'tis an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed; things rank and gross in/ nature/ Possess it merely." Act I, sc. ii, l. 129-138. Later, he dismisses the world as "no/ other thing [] than a foul and pestilent/ congregation of vapors." Act II, sc. ii, l. 308-309. And he dismisses man, too: "What piece of work is/ man!...what is/ this quintessence of dust?" Act II, sc. ii, l. 309-310, 314-315.
Is this what it's all about, Manny? A "quintessence of dust?" "Bestial oblivion?" An existence "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable?" "An unweeded garden that grows to seed?" "A foul and pestilent congregation of vapors?" Taken in the abstract, Hamlet is dead on. Life pretty much sucks. And even the good stuff is a pretty poor palliative for the endless difficulties it inflicts upon us.
I am permissive toward abortion because I really could care less whether another person enters this brutal world. After all, earthly life offers little more than "bestial oblivion," anyway, so why should I care whether some new beast gets to eat, sleep or feed? It just doesn't matter to me. If a woman chooses to end her pregnancy, good for her: She's saving the little tyke a whole lot of trouble.
But what about abortion opponents? They must have different expectations from life than I do. They must not really ponder human existence. They must genuinely like what life has to offer. They must really like eating, sleeping, fucking, sucking and snorting, even if they wind up with bags for bellies. After all, they are willing to kill doctors in order to defend potential life. Let me say that again: Potential life. They like life so much that they are willing to commit murder so that a clump of cells may one day eat, sleep, fuck, suck and snort. They are committed not just to an existing person's right to eat, sleep, fuck, suck and snort. They are also committed to a non-existent person's right to do so. Now that shows real dedication to earthly life. It's a dedication I certainly do not share. To each his own, I suppose.
In my experience, life is no bowl of cherries. It is hard. It is full of misery and pain. When we do enjoy good moments, they are precious. But how rare they are! And viewed in the abstract, how petty! Is this why we're alive, then? To undergo endless difficulty punctuated by a few slender moments of bestial joy? We cling to life like any other mammal. We fear death because we do not know what awaits us. So, as Hamlet says, we "bear those ills we have/ [rather] than fly to others that we know not of." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i. l. 83-84.
We are the only ones who can create meaning in our lives. Hamlet found meaning by finding a purpose: Taking revenge for his murdered father. He did not seek mere "bestial oblivion" or "worldly comfort." He impressed his soul on his existence to transcend his "mortal coil." His life took on greater significance. And fittingly, he died in the process.
I have not died yet. I know that life does not offer much. Yet I try to do what Hamlet did. I am trying to live for something greater than bestial oblivion. I like bestial oblivion as much as the next man (beast). But my real joy flows from the idea that I am doing something beyond the flesh: Writing. I had to find something to make this maddening journey bearable. It was my choice.
Even then, I do not hold my own life in high esteem. On the whole, life is more trouble than it's worth. Only instinctual self-preservation holds me in check.
So from my view, so what if a woman gets an abortion? I have no philosophical problem with any activity that saves another from this harrowing sphere of pain.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
MY TEETH ARE DOOMED
AN ESSAY
I am getting older. Every day, time leaves new marks on my body. When the light shines a certain way, I notice time's inscriptions. Lines emanate away from my eyes, especially when I smile. I have more wrinkles on my forehead. My hands are starting to look cracked, crooked and worn. Hair is sprouting up in places I'd rather not discuss. And my teeth aren't so pearly white anymore; in fact, I can feel them getting weaker by the week.
Our bodies doomed to decay. That's the problem with bodies. Beauty and youth please us. But we understand how fleeting they are. We understand that time is never on our side. When we see a beautiful person, we know they won't be so forever. It's all just a matter of time before remorseless months and years erode even the supplest beauties.
Aging is a natural process. But that doesn't make it any more appealing to us. Death is a natural process too; and very few people like death, either. Still, natural processes can be both scary and reassuring. They are scary because no one wants to get old and die. On the other hand, they are reassuring because everyone reliably knows they will happen. Just as everyone knows a flower will wilt and turn brown, so too does everyone know that we all will die one day. That is just what happens in nature. You can see it. And you can apply it to your own life. It is rhythmic. You can count on it.
But let's get back to the scary part. While nature might provide us analogies to understand what will happen to us in the end, it is no less unpleasant to consider. We are, after all, rather vain creatures. We do not like the idea that our youth and appeal may one day fade. We do not like the idea that our beauty will wilt like the flowers in the garden. We experience so many pleasures in youth. And God forbid that time will steal them from us. It is not a pleasant thought.
Still, we must confront it. I confront it a little bit every day when I notice the new little injuries time has left upon me. In a strange way, it makes me reflective. When I notice something going wrong with my body, it makes me remember how long I've been here. It makes me remember how much I've seen and experienced. I go back through the years and I remember the times when my body did not ache the way it does now. I remember when there was no hair in the places it grows now. Our bodies are like fossils; and our memory confirms to us how long we have been here. Although I do not like the idea that I am decaying, I can at least take some pride in the idea that I have made it this far.
Having said all this, my teeth are doomed. I think they are even more doomed than the rest of my body. My constant coffee abuse, advancing age, lack of insurance and insufficient funds portend a dental disaster of unspeakable magnitude. Last year, I managed to scrape up enough money to get an examination, along with a cleaning and whitening (I am still paying interest on the visits). The dentist scraped unbelievable amounts of plaque from places in my mouth I barely knew existed. Then she flossed mysterious cracks in those unknown regions. She drew blood almost every time she hit the gum.
Toward the end, she said: "It's been a while since your last visit, hasn't it?" Then she offered me some Tylenol.
My poor, doomed teeth. It does not help that I have English ancestry. Genetically, the English have bad teeth. My own circumstances make my naturally bad genetic situation even worse. Every day, I notice my gums getting whiter. There are stains between a couple teeth that were not there before. And I can feel my teeth moving in my gumline in a way I have never felt before. Plus, they tell me I have impacted molars that must be removed before they burrow into my nerves. Put simply, I am in dire dental trouble.
But this is what happens when you get older. Time brutally flogs our bodies. There is little we can do about it. It just happens. Sure, we can live as healthy as we possibly can. We can eat right, exercise and even think positively about the future. But these are mere salves: Nothing can stop time's slow, steady, corrosive assault on our flesh.
It would be nice to escape our bodies for a while. While our bodies might offer numerous ways to experience the world's pleasures, they are also enormously restrictive. They can produce as much pain as pleasure. Time's corrosion is just another terror our bodies must confront. Still, it is so easy to put trust in our bodies. It is banal in the truest sense. We know our bodies better than anything else in our lives. We are stuck with them. We see them every day. We monitor them and scrutinize them. We must endure their chemical tempests and painful discomforts. They matter to us because they place insistent demands on us: Feed me; relieve me; give me rest; make me comfortable; make me feel pleasure. If we ignore them, we suffer pain for it. And we learn from earliest memory that pain is not good. So we slavishly pander to our bodies.
It is no accident that the law targets the body. Almost everyone cares about his own body. If there is something no man wants to experience, it is bodily discomfort. So the law threatens to inflict bodily discomfort on anyone who transgresses its commands. While some exceptional people hold their bodies in contempt, they are too rare to make a difference. The law concerns itself with efficacy: It knows that almost everyone fears bodily punishment, so that is what it threatens to maintain order.
So we spend our lives worrying about our bodies until time slowly eradicates them. It is quite a pathetic lot if you think about it. Still, it is completely natural. As living organisms, we want to stay alive. To stay alive, we must preserve our bodies. We fear death largely because it means we can no longer enjoy what life has to offer our bodies. We know that we will die in time because we see what time does to others' bodies. So we fear aging, because we know what it leads to.
But what about life beyond the body? Is it possible to achieve some mental satisfaction without worrying about the body's inevitable decay? Throughout history, we find examples of men who did not put all their faith in bodily comfort. There have been men who lived for something beyond placating their bodies and avoiding death. In fact, we tend to revere men who lived beyond their bodies because they are so rare. It is no accident that Jesus Christ is the central hero in Western Civilization: He gave up his body so that others could enjoy theirs. There is a nobility in life beyond the body because so few people can effectively ignore their bodies. Most people fear aging and death. Most people simply live to experience the pleasures the body can give. Love it or hate it, that is just how we are.
I am no martyr. I am just as worried about my body as the next man. But I fear pain more than I fear death. I wish I could hold my body in contempt. Yet the body is rapaciously insistent; it is difficult to ignore its demands for long. No matter how strongly I believe in abstract principles and ideas, I cannot say whether I could maintain my commitment to them in the face of torture, hunger or agony. I am worried about my hair and my teeth, for goodness' sake; imagine how I would feel if confronted with genuine bodily scourges?
But death is different than pain. Pain is about the body and its limitations. Death is about existence and non-existence. Death rules out the body altogether. In that light, it is easier to romanticize non-existence than pain. In fact, non-existence lends itself much more to abstract principles than mere contempt for the body. Death frees us from concern about the body. Death liberates us from the body's incessant demands and penalties. True, death might cut short our ability to experience the body's joys. But it also forecloses the body's ability to torment us any longer. There is some objective, rational appeal to that possibility. If bodily life--on the whole-- appears to offer more pain than pleasure, why go on living at all? It is better to cease to exist in order to avoid pain than to exist for nothing more than pain.
Yet this broaches another conundrum: What if death does not end our pain? After all, no one has ever reported to us what death is like. No one has come back from that "undiscover'd country from whose bourn/ No traveler returns." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 80-81. We have all seen aging and pain because living people experience aging and pain. We see what happens to them. They can tell us how bad they feel.
But no one has experienced death and lived to tell about it. Who knows what awaits us there. That is what makes people fear death: Unknowability. Maybe something dreadful happens once we die. No one knows. No one can know. No one can sense anything once they die, let alone communicate what they sense. And that is why death continues to terrify us. So as bad as bodily life may be, we choose to "bear what ills we have,/ [rather] Than fly to others that we know not of." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 82-83.
I have argued before that it is unreasonable to fear death because death cuts short our bodily ability to sense anything. http://reasoncommercejustice.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-we-fear-death.html. But once again, we see that humans are not invariably reasonable. They fear death even though death eliminates their sensory capacities--including the capacity to experience pain--because they fear the unknown. That fear is not reasonable because reason is based in human sense. Death obliterates sense, so it is not reasonable to fear it.
It is actually more reasonable to fear aging than death. We can sense our bodies aging. We can feel our bodies weakening. We know that aging will bring us more pain and less bodily satisfaction. We can sense all these things. Our reason has something to grasp in that situation.
I reasonably worry about my teeth. I have every reason to believe they are doomed. And I know it's going to hurt.
But with death: Who knows what I'll feel? That is strangely reassuring.
I am getting older. Every day, time leaves new marks on my body. When the light shines a certain way, I notice time's inscriptions. Lines emanate away from my eyes, especially when I smile. I have more wrinkles on my forehead. My hands are starting to look cracked, crooked and worn. Hair is sprouting up in places I'd rather not discuss. And my teeth aren't so pearly white anymore; in fact, I can feel them getting weaker by the week.
Our bodies doomed to decay. That's the problem with bodies. Beauty and youth please us. But we understand how fleeting they are. We understand that time is never on our side. When we see a beautiful person, we know they won't be so forever. It's all just a matter of time before remorseless months and years erode even the supplest beauties.
Aging is a natural process. But that doesn't make it any more appealing to us. Death is a natural process too; and very few people like death, either. Still, natural processes can be both scary and reassuring. They are scary because no one wants to get old and die. On the other hand, they are reassuring because everyone reliably knows they will happen. Just as everyone knows a flower will wilt and turn brown, so too does everyone know that we all will die one day. That is just what happens in nature. You can see it. And you can apply it to your own life. It is rhythmic. You can count on it.
But let's get back to the scary part. While nature might provide us analogies to understand what will happen to us in the end, it is no less unpleasant to consider. We are, after all, rather vain creatures. We do not like the idea that our youth and appeal may one day fade. We do not like the idea that our beauty will wilt like the flowers in the garden. We experience so many pleasures in youth. And God forbid that time will steal them from us. It is not a pleasant thought.
Still, we must confront it. I confront it a little bit every day when I notice the new little injuries time has left upon me. In a strange way, it makes me reflective. When I notice something going wrong with my body, it makes me remember how long I've been here. It makes me remember how much I've seen and experienced. I go back through the years and I remember the times when my body did not ache the way it does now. I remember when there was no hair in the places it grows now. Our bodies are like fossils; and our memory confirms to us how long we have been here. Although I do not like the idea that I am decaying, I can at least take some pride in the idea that I have made it this far.
Having said all this, my teeth are doomed. I think they are even more doomed than the rest of my body. My constant coffee abuse, advancing age, lack of insurance and insufficient funds portend a dental disaster of unspeakable magnitude. Last year, I managed to scrape up enough money to get an examination, along with a cleaning and whitening (I am still paying interest on the visits). The dentist scraped unbelievable amounts of plaque from places in my mouth I barely knew existed. Then she flossed mysterious cracks in those unknown regions. She drew blood almost every time she hit the gum.
Toward the end, she said: "It's been a while since your last visit, hasn't it?" Then she offered me some Tylenol.
My poor, doomed teeth. It does not help that I have English ancestry. Genetically, the English have bad teeth. My own circumstances make my naturally bad genetic situation even worse. Every day, I notice my gums getting whiter. There are stains between a couple teeth that were not there before. And I can feel my teeth moving in my gumline in a way I have never felt before. Plus, they tell me I have impacted molars that must be removed before they burrow into my nerves. Put simply, I am in dire dental trouble.
But this is what happens when you get older. Time brutally flogs our bodies. There is little we can do about it. It just happens. Sure, we can live as healthy as we possibly can. We can eat right, exercise and even think positively about the future. But these are mere salves: Nothing can stop time's slow, steady, corrosive assault on our flesh.
It would be nice to escape our bodies for a while. While our bodies might offer numerous ways to experience the world's pleasures, they are also enormously restrictive. They can produce as much pain as pleasure. Time's corrosion is just another terror our bodies must confront. Still, it is so easy to put trust in our bodies. It is banal in the truest sense. We know our bodies better than anything else in our lives. We are stuck with them. We see them every day. We monitor them and scrutinize them. We must endure their chemical tempests and painful discomforts. They matter to us because they place insistent demands on us: Feed me; relieve me; give me rest; make me comfortable; make me feel pleasure. If we ignore them, we suffer pain for it. And we learn from earliest memory that pain is not good. So we slavishly pander to our bodies.
It is no accident that the law targets the body. Almost everyone cares about his own body. If there is something no man wants to experience, it is bodily discomfort. So the law threatens to inflict bodily discomfort on anyone who transgresses its commands. While some exceptional people hold their bodies in contempt, they are too rare to make a difference. The law concerns itself with efficacy: It knows that almost everyone fears bodily punishment, so that is what it threatens to maintain order.
So we spend our lives worrying about our bodies until time slowly eradicates them. It is quite a pathetic lot if you think about it. Still, it is completely natural. As living organisms, we want to stay alive. To stay alive, we must preserve our bodies. We fear death largely because it means we can no longer enjoy what life has to offer our bodies. We know that we will die in time because we see what time does to others' bodies. So we fear aging, because we know what it leads to.
But what about life beyond the body? Is it possible to achieve some mental satisfaction without worrying about the body's inevitable decay? Throughout history, we find examples of men who did not put all their faith in bodily comfort. There have been men who lived for something beyond placating their bodies and avoiding death. In fact, we tend to revere men who lived beyond their bodies because they are so rare. It is no accident that Jesus Christ is the central hero in Western Civilization: He gave up his body so that others could enjoy theirs. There is a nobility in life beyond the body because so few people can effectively ignore their bodies. Most people fear aging and death. Most people simply live to experience the pleasures the body can give. Love it or hate it, that is just how we are.
I am no martyr. I am just as worried about my body as the next man. But I fear pain more than I fear death. I wish I could hold my body in contempt. Yet the body is rapaciously insistent; it is difficult to ignore its demands for long. No matter how strongly I believe in abstract principles and ideas, I cannot say whether I could maintain my commitment to them in the face of torture, hunger or agony. I am worried about my hair and my teeth, for goodness' sake; imagine how I would feel if confronted with genuine bodily scourges?
But death is different than pain. Pain is about the body and its limitations. Death is about existence and non-existence. Death rules out the body altogether. In that light, it is easier to romanticize non-existence than pain. In fact, non-existence lends itself much more to abstract principles than mere contempt for the body. Death frees us from concern about the body. Death liberates us from the body's incessant demands and penalties. True, death might cut short our ability to experience the body's joys. But it also forecloses the body's ability to torment us any longer. There is some objective, rational appeal to that possibility. If bodily life--on the whole-- appears to offer more pain than pleasure, why go on living at all? It is better to cease to exist in order to avoid pain than to exist for nothing more than pain.
Yet this broaches another conundrum: What if death does not end our pain? After all, no one has ever reported to us what death is like. No one has come back from that "undiscover'd country from whose bourn/ No traveler returns." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 80-81. We have all seen aging and pain because living people experience aging and pain. We see what happens to them. They can tell us how bad they feel.
But no one has experienced death and lived to tell about it. Who knows what awaits us there. That is what makes people fear death: Unknowability. Maybe something dreadful happens once we die. No one knows. No one can know. No one can sense anything once they die, let alone communicate what they sense. And that is why death continues to terrify us. So as bad as bodily life may be, we choose to "bear what ills we have,/ [rather] Than fly to others that we know not of." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 82-83.
I have argued before that it is unreasonable to fear death because death cuts short our bodily ability to sense anything. http://reasoncommercejustice.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-we-fear-death.html. But once again, we see that humans are not invariably reasonable. They fear death even though death eliminates their sensory capacities--including the capacity to experience pain--because they fear the unknown. That fear is not reasonable because reason is based in human sense. Death obliterates sense, so it is not reasonable to fear it.
It is actually more reasonable to fear aging than death. We can sense our bodies aging. We can feel our bodies weakening. We know that aging will bring us more pain and less bodily satisfaction. We can sense all these things. Our reason has something to grasp in that situation.
I reasonably worry about my teeth. I have every reason to believe they are doomed. And I know it's going to hurt.
But with death: Who knows what I'll feel? That is strangely reassuring.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
OESTERHOUDT REVIEWS THE DECADE--AND HIMSELF
A REFLECTION
I've always seen life through the lens of history, including my own existence. I have always been able to remember dates with uncanny accuracy. Over the past week, I took the time to reflect on the decade that just ended. It's worth doing: You don't move into a new decade every day. And memories fade fast.
What a perplexing decade. The first decade of the 21st Century was my first full decade as an adult. On January 1, 2000, I was a wild, mop-haired 22-year-old sapling who knew virtually nothing about life. At the time, of course, I thought I knew everything. On December 31, 2009, I was 32 and had been in a committed relationship for more than nine years. My father had died, I had graduated from law school and no matter how much I learned, I found out how little I really understood about life.
Every year brought a new crisis--and a new crisis in values. I learned to take absolutely nothing for granted. In my first full decade as an adult on this planet, I saw that life is precarious. And I learned you need to savor it. I determined never to let myself forget that.
But today I want to talk about more than myself. I was not the only person (or thing) who changed over the past ten years. No, the world, too, changed immensely between 2000 and 2009. Put simply, these were bleak times. We endured stolen elections, mass murder on American soil, foreign wars, government fear-mongering, out-of-control corporate excess, lending abuses and ultimately the worst economic crisis since 1929. These were the Bush years. These were the years when the world learned to hate the United States more than it ever has in the past.
I am an amateur historian. So today I will try to sum up the decade as briefly as I can. In the process, I will try to encapsulate the spirit of these profoundly difficult times. To that end, I will write a few words about geopolitical developments that occurred during each year in the decade. Then, for perspective's sake, I will write a few words about things that happened in my own life during the same time.
In 2000, America relished dot-com prosperity. Most Americans had good jobs. There was a budget surplus. Still, many Americans did not like the man whose rule made these things possible: President Bill Clinton. They blamed him for fornicating in the Oval Office. That fall, Americans went to the polls. They had a choice: They could pick Al Gore if they wanted to continue the Democratic policies that led to prosperity in the late 1990s; or they could pick George W. Bush, the Texan challenger who offered a chance to chastise Bill Clinton for his sexual escapades. In the end, Al Gore got more votes, but George W. Bush won the election. The Supreme Court decided who would be President by a 5-4 vote. That maddening result set the tone for the decade: Ruthless division in American society marked by mutual accusations of unfair play and unbridled contempt on both sides. The era of George W. Bush had begun.
I finished college in 2000. I had no idea what to do with myself. I knew nothing about commerce; somehow I thought I would use my German language skills to land translation jobs and pay the rent in New York City. I rented a roach-infested one-bedroom apartment with a collapsing ceiling on 146th Street for $600 a month (hey, at least it was near the 'A' train). I rode around the city on a bike during the summer. Somehow--thanks to the heady economic climate at the time--I managed to make money translating German. It was an exciting time for me. I met the love of my life in June; I have been with him ever since. At one point, I even had the most money I have ever had in my bank account: $10,000. I turned 23.
No one will ever forget 2001. In fact, the government doesn't let us forget it, because that's the year 9/11 happened. Islamic resentment against the United States had been brewing for several decades by the time airliners knocked down the World Trade Center. American involvement in the Gulf War--as well as an intrusive American military presence in the Middle East--had long ruffled Muslim feathers. But Bush and all the pundits had us believe that 9/11 was an unprovoked, totally unanticipated attack. Americans suddenly felt vulnerable; no foreign army had ever attacked American soil in modern times. For a brief moment, the pure shock of the crisis united Americans in an unprecedented way; creditors even gave people breaks on debt. That unity swiftly disappeared, however, as Bush polarized the Nation by committing it to a "wartime" stance against "terror." By December, American troops had invaded and occupied Afghanistan. War had come to America. And we're still living with it.
My fortunes changed in 2001, too. My translation jobs dried up as the economy began to crumble in the months before 9/11. I began to worry about money for the first time in my life, and I made the unnerving discovery that my college education had not prepared me at all for commercial existence. I grudgingly began looking for a "real job." My dissatisfaction grew when I found out that my training in German, Russian and comparative literature did not impress corporate recruiters; they were more interesting in my typing speed. Finally, I settled on pursuing a career in law. It seemed the only thing that accommodated my abilities and offered a salary sufficient to pay New York rent. So I started working as a legal assistant, about four blocks from the World Trade Center. On September 8, my partner and I took a trip to Chicago. From there, we saw the Twin Towers fall. We decided that maybe it was time to leave New York for a while. After all, the law firm where I worked was buried in dust. So we moved to Chicago. I went to work at a law firm there making $31,500. The law firm even gave me a Tiffany ball-point pen on my first day. I turned 24.
President Bush maximized his power in 2002. Using Americans' desperate fear after 9/11 to his advantage, he systematically implemented practices that chipped away at everyone's constitutional liberties. Enforcing the "Patriot Act," government agents began wiretapping phones and spying on Americans' reading habits. The military confined so-called "enemy combatants" at secret installations throughout the world, denying them Due Process and access to counsel. Meanwhile, Americans worried that terrorists were planning yet more attacks. The Federal government fanned their fears with a "five-layer color-coded terror warning system." It has never fallen below yellow, nor has it ever risen above orange. And Americans witnessed the Enron scandal in 2002. They got a glimpse into the culture of greed and excess that marked corporate society during the decade. Sadly, they also learned that these were the folks Bush wanted to protect more than anyone else.
My 2002 was relatively unexciting. I got up every morning and rode the Chicago "El" to the law firm, where I shuffled papers and stapled things for about 10 hours a day. Still, I was very much a careerist in 2002. I wanted to prove that I, too, could make a lot of money. To do that, I was determined to get into a top law school and be a better lawyer than the ones for whom I collated copies at the office. I studied for the LSAT. I filled out applications. I chased down reference letters and made phone calls. I researched schools and their statistics. I thought I would waltz right into the Ivy League thanks to my undergraduate grades. But I am not a standardized test ace, and my lackluster LSAT score led all the top schools to reject me. This was a bitter pill for me. It was the first bad news I ever had in an academic pursuit. Yet I blamed the system for the result. I still loved learning; I did not let a bunch of lowly test-writers discourage me. I turned 25.
America invaded Iraq in 2003. Capitalizing on lingering fears about terrorism--and by convincing the American people that Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction"--President Bush claimed that Iraq posed a "direct threat" to American sovereignty. So in Bush's mind, it was no invasion at all; it was "self-defense." The military even titled it "Operation Iraqi Freedom," as if America actually cared whether Iraqis had a democratic constitution. The war swiftly toppled Saddam Hussein, leading President Bush to declare in May: "We have prevailed." But this was sheer delusion. A civil war broke out in Iraq. Resentment against American occupation made existing tensions even worse. American casualties rose, as did American commitments. The mission was not "accomplished." In fact, it continues to this day--with 6,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead so far.
I got into law school in 2003. I landed a partial scholarship at New York Law School, so I moved back to New York from Chicago. I was overjoyed to be back in school; it was so much better than slaving away at an office for $31,500 a year. For three years, I had not really challenged myself intellectually. But once I started law school, I rediscovered why I always liked being a student. I poured myself into study for twelve hours every day. I did very well in my classes, even if I stressed out about them too much. I felt a real sense of accomplishment. I enjoyed what I studied, even if I could not know at the time that it would not help me in law practice. In 2003, I still thought that the law would make me rich. I had every confidence that my grades would translate into career success. My old law firm in Chicago even said it would hire me the following summer. I also swam a lot in 2003; I went to the gym to counterbalance my studies, and I loved that, too. I liked the way my body looked. I had some difficulties with my parents, but that was about my only challenge in 2003. I turned 26.
America began to understand the Iraq war in 2004. To most people, it became obvious that Iraq had not been "liberated." In fact, more major battles took place in 2004 than in the previous year. Additionally, many people saw that American forces were not as heroic as some sources made them out to be. Americans saw shocking images from the torture chambers at Abu Ghraib prison. In those images, Americans did not appear as noble warriors, but rather torturers and villains. Furthermore, Americans began to appreciate how many civil liberties they had surrendered to advance the "war on terror." They began to see that America was losing serious credibility abroad. Detainee abuse cases became big news in 2004. John Kerry tried to bring these issues to the forefront by challenging Bush for the Presidency. But Bush harped on terror and gay marriage to handedly win the election. Although many Americans began to see how much dignity America was compromising in its open-ended quest to "defeat terror," they could not muster the courage to stop the government's spiral into lawlessness.
I finished my first year in law school in 2004. Relatively speaking, it had been a harrowing experience. I remember feeling overworked and stressed that spring. But my toils had been worth it: I was number 6 in my class of 400. Armed with my grades, I transferred to Loyola Law School in Chicago after my old law firm assured me that they would offer me a job that summer. Unfortunately, after my partner and I had rented an apartment and moved back to Chicago, the law firm told me "they could no longer afford to hire me." This was a serious disappointment. But I made the most of it and attended to my legal studies with the same zeal as ever. In the fall, I contracted a strange infection that damaged my inner ear. I lost my hearing in one ear for several months, and my equilibrium has never been perfect since. I had some troubles with my partner as he struggled with depression and anxiety. I turned 27.
In 2005, America saw who was really important in society. That year, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the gulf coast. President Bush famously did nothing, allowing the poor black people to drown and starve waiting for aid. He did not even tour the disaster site, choosing instead to fly overhead, remarking: "That looks pretty bad." Congress passed a law in 2005 limiting consumer access to bankruptcy, further supporting the big business and banking interests that formed the Republican base. As in 2002, we learned who was really important in George Bush's America: The big corporations and banks. At the same time, lenders and traders began profiting from Republican policies that deregulated the financial industry. A false prosperity began to develop, propelled by predatory loans and fraudulent credit practices.
My law school career neared its end in 2005. During the summer, I took my first real "legal job" working as a law clerk at a Chicago personal injury firm. I enjoyed the work, winning many accolades from my bosses for my writing, theory and research. I dove headlong into the theoretical aspects of the law, and that served me well as I molded strategies for every case that crossed my desk. At the same time, I took a passionate interest in constitutional law, which made sense because it represents the intersection between law, history, policy, politics, ethics and philosophy. I had never been so excited about the law. By 2005, I had developed a real fluency in legal doctrine; and I put that fluency to work for me. I had no reason to think that I would not be happy in the profession. I briefly separated from my partner during the spring, but we reunited stronger than ever a month later. My partner reconciled with my parents in 2005. Things were looking very promising for me. I turned 28.
President Bush's fortunes began to change in 2006. Public dissatisfaction grew as the war in Iraq ground endlessly on. Although Bush declared that his 2004 election victory gave him a "mandate" to broadly legislate on major issues, he suffered a critical setback in 2006 when Republicans lost their congressional majority. Without congressional support, Bush's sweeping conservative rhetoric became toothless. Although the Nation continued to bask in deregulated prosperity in 2006, more and more Americans saw that economic trouble lurked just around the corner. Unemployment inched upward in 2006. Mortgage defaults accelerated as consumers discovered that banks held "adjustable rate" powers that tacked interest onto principal, resulting in permanent, increasing debt. Although Wall Street remained strong, ominous signs about the Nation's financial future began to appear.
My life changed for the worse in 2006. In January, my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He fought hard, but by June he was dead. This cast a pall over my existence. I lost interest in the career path that had entranced me for the previous five years. If, after all, everything could end as quickly as it did for my father, why should I really stress out about petty things like money and jobs? Yet through all this I managed to finish law school and pass the Bar Exam. In hindsight, I don't know how I managed it. My perspective on life fundamentally changed in 2006. I carried that new perspective with me as I began practicing law in Chicago. I absolutely hated it. Practice was nothing like the happy legal theorizing I did in 2005. No, practice was all about money. My bosses ridiculed me for indecision. They mocked me for caring too much about justice when money was at stake. At the firm Holiday party that year, I saw "successful" lawyers falling all over each other drunk. They yelled, cursed, boasted and acted like children. At that moment, I decided that I could not practice law. I saw that law was a business, and it chafed against my very spirit. I did not know what I would do. I had spent three years pouring my heart into legal doctrine, yet I could not practice it. I didn't care. My father's death forced me to deeply question all the things that people are "supposed to do" in life. I turned 29.
America blundered ever closer to financial collapse in 2007. As the decade entered its later years, Bush lost more and more influence. Still, the war in Iraq droned forward, claiming more and more lives. Unemployment grew in 2007, even though Wall Street continued to report gains. Deregulation seemed to be working; people could still buy homes without putting money down. A deeper and deeper rift grew between rich and poor in 2007. The bubble was growing. And men like Bernie Madoff took full advantage of it.
Life did not get any easier for me in 2007. Having questioned my career in the law, I toyed with the idea of becoming a judge, or at least a judicial law clerk. If I could not practice, perhaps I could find a place for my intellectual passion in government. It was not to be; no one was hiring thanks to a "budget freeze." So I made ends meet by working as a legal consultant. This suited me. I did not have a boss; I was not under pressure to woo clients or make money. I just put in my time without stress and went home with a paycheck. True, it was not very stimulating. But it gave me a chance to meet interesting people and live my life in some peace. In August, however, disaster struck. My partner suffered a freak burn accident that left him in the hospital near death. He stayed there 35 days. His heart stopped twice on the operating table. I was at his side the whole time. He came home in September; our life has never been the same. I had to learn to be a nurse as well as a wage-earner. I dressed his wounds every day, I managed his medications and I held his hand when he was scared. It has been a full-time job, and it has not ended. Once again, I came face to face with death. I almost lost him, just one year after my father died. That experience convinced me yet again that I made the right decision to abandon "careers" and simply focus on living life without unrealistic expectations. Life is precious; and it can end more quickly that you can possibly imagine. There's no time to worry about inconsequential things. I turned 30.
In 2008, America experienced what happens when you deregulate financial markets. In 2008, America suffered the consequences of Bush-era economic policies. Wall Street collapsed in September, necessitating massive governmental intervention to rescue financial institutions that were "too big to fail." By divorcing government from business, Bush spurred artificial growth during his term. But in so doing, he gave free rein to greed, which ultimately destroyed the economy. Unemployment rose to dizzying heights. People could no longer pay their mortgages. Record numbers pled for government aid. For the first time in decades, Americans wanted increased government intervention into economic and social affairs. Seizing the moment, a new political force arose: Barack Obama. At this critical juncture in American history, Obama fascinated the public. He offered a new path to address modern challenges, a path that focused on oversight and socialization rather than deregulation. Critics claimed he would destroy the free market. But in 2008, Americans had had enough of the free market. They elected him in a landslide.
I spent 2008 caring for my partner as he recovered from his accident. I continued working low-stress consulting jobs. After years of study and toil, I finally had a chance to reflect on what I had become. I still loved the law; I simply did not like the business of law. I continued to study law and think about it every day. But I no longer exulted it. Rather, I began to assimilate my legal knowledge with all the other things I had learned to that point. I delved once more into philosophy and language in 2008. I re-read books I had not opened in ten years; and now I could actually understand them. I also rekindled my Wanderlust. I traveled to Berlin for the first time in years and went back three more times. I started speaking German again. And I started writing. I felt I had amassed enough learning and experience to finally express myself with some confidence. I began this blog in September; since then it has reinvigorated my life. I live to write now. I analyze everything with a new respect. Despite all the setbacks, I found something I loved--and it inspired me in a way I had never felt before. I turned 31.
America began traveling a new path in 2009. President Obama assumed a daunting task: Salvaging the United States from financial ruin. Despite vicious opposition from Republicans, he spent huge amounts in an attempt to "stimulate" floundering enterprises and spur job growth. He also committed America to reforming its health care system. Like perhaps no other social issue, health care is a moral symbol for progressive government. Under Bush, health care was just another article in commerce. That led to widespread injustice because many Americans could not obtain medical care for financial reasons. Obama recognized that and put America on a path to increased social activism in government. As laudable as that may be, the battle over health care has turned into a battle for America's soul. Can we become a more progressive people? Or are we so determined to "pay our own way" in life that we refuse to change for the better? In 2009, America struggled to adjust its focus. Plus Michael Jackson died and Tiger Woods cheated on his wife.
I continued to care for my partner in 2009. Although his physical condition improved, his mental condition did not. He began to suffer from debilitating depression during the winter, so much so that he could not get out of bed for weeks on end. This required me to stay at home full-time. Thanks to generous friends, I did this all year. But my partner did not get any better. During the summer, his depression swung into mania, turning both our lives upside down. Ultimately, he had to stay in the hospital for almost a month. After he came home, I once again assumed the nurse's role, but in a much more pervasive way. He has never been more dependent on me, now even for basic life necessities. I am happy to help him. Despite all the challenges, I wrote my blog almost every morning in 2009. In February, we moved back to New York in order to be closer to friends who can help us. I am happy to be back in the city I love. I turned 32.
I do not know what the future holds. But I am oddly confident. My writing has saved my life in so many ways. I have a feeling that 2010 will be a great year for me, and that I will apply all the lessons I learned over the past decade in the new one.
Wisdom truly emerges over time. By that standard, I am far richer today than I was in 2000.
I've always seen life through the lens of history, including my own existence. I have always been able to remember dates with uncanny accuracy. Over the past week, I took the time to reflect on the decade that just ended. It's worth doing: You don't move into a new decade every day. And memories fade fast.
What a perplexing decade. The first decade of the 21st Century was my first full decade as an adult. On January 1, 2000, I was a wild, mop-haired 22-year-old sapling who knew virtually nothing about life. At the time, of course, I thought I knew everything. On December 31, 2009, I was 32 and had been in a committed relationship for more than nine years. My father had died, I had graduated from law school and no matter how much I learned, I found out how little I really understood about life.
Every year brought a new crisis--and a new crisis in values. I learned to take absolutely nothing for granted. In my first full decade as an adult on this planet, I saw that life is precarious. And I learned you need to savor it. I determined never to let myself forget that.
But today I want to talk about more than myself. I was not the only person (or thing) who changed over the past ten years. No, the world, too, changed immensely between 2000 and 2009. Put simply, these were bleak times. We endured stolen elections, mass murder on American soil, foreign wars, government fear-mongering, out-of-control corporate excess, lending abuses and ultimately the worst economic crisis since 1929. These were the Bush years. These were the years when the world learned to hate the United States more than it ever has in the past.
I am an amateur historian. So today I will try to sum up the decade as briefly as I can. In the process, I will try to encapsulate the spirit of these profoundly difficult times. To that end, I will write a few words about geopolitical developments that occurred during each year in the decade. Then, for perspective's sake, I will write a few words about things that happened in my own life during the same time.
In 2000, America relished dot-com prosperity. Most Americans had good jobs. There was a budget surplus. Still, many Americans did not like the man whose rule made these things possible: President Bill Clinton. They blamed him for fornicating in the Oval Office. That fall, Americans went to the polls. They had a choice: They could pick Al Gore if they wanted to continue the Democratic policies that led to prosperity in the late 1990s; or they could pick George W. Bush, the Texan challenger who offered a chance to chastise Bill Clinton for his sexual escapades. In the end, Al Gore got more votes, but George W. Bush won the election. The Supreme Court decided who would be President by a 5-4 vote. That maddening result set the tone for the decade: Ruthless division in American society marked by mutual accusations of unfair play and unbridled contempt on both sides. The era of George W. Bush had begun.
I finished college in 2000. I had no idea what to do with myself. I knew nothing about commerce; somehow I thought I would use my German language skills to land translation jobs and pay the rent in New York City. I rented a roach-infested one-bedroom apartment with a collapsing ceiling on 146th Street for $600 a month (hey, at least it was near the 'A' train). I rode around the city on a bike during the summer. Somehow--thanks to the heady economic climate at the time--I managed to make money translating German. It was an exciting time for me. I met the love of my life in June; I have been with him ever since. At one point, I even had the most money I have ever had in my bank account: $10,000. I turned 23.
No one will ever forget 2001. In fact, the government doesn't let us forget it, because that's the year 9/11 happened. Islamic resentment against the United States had been brewing for several decades by the time airliners knocked down the World Trade Center. American involvement in the Gulf War--as well as an intrusive American military presence in the Middle East--had long ruffled Muslim feathers. But Bush and all the pundits had us believe that 9/11 was an unprovoked, totally unanticipated attack. Americans suddenly felt vulnerable; no foreign army had ever attacked American soil in modern times. For a brief moment, the pure shock of the crisis united Americans in an unprecedented way; creditors even gave people breaks on debt. That unity swiftly disappeared, however, as Bush polarized the Nation by committing it to a "wartime" stance against "terror." By December, American troops had invaded and occupied Afghanistan. War had come to America. And we're still living with it.
My fortunes changed in 2001, too. My translation jobs dried up as the economy began to crumble in the months before 9/11. I began to worry about money for the first time in my life, and I made the unnerving discovery that my college education had not prepared me at all for commercial existence. I grudgingly began looking for a "real job." My dissatisfaction grew when I found out that my training in German, Russian and comparative literature did not impress corporate recruiters; they were more interesting in my typing speed. Finally, I settled on pursuing a career in law. It seemed the only thing that accommodated my abilities and offered a salary sufficient to pay New York rent. So I started working as a legal assistant, about four blocks from the World Trade Center. On September 8, my partner and I took a trip to Chicago. From there, we saw the Twin Towers fall. We decided that maybe it was time to leave New York for a while. After all, the law firm where I worked was buried in dust. So we moved to Chicago. I went to work at a law firm there making $31,500. The law firm even gave me a Tiffany ball-point pen on my first day. I turned 24.
President Bush maximized his power in 2002. Using Americans' desperate fear after 9/11 to his advantage, he systematically implemented practices that chipped away at everyone's constitutional liberties. Enforcing the "Patriot Act," government agents began wiretapping phones and spying on Americans' reading habits. The military confined so-called "enemy combatants" at secret installations throughout the world, denying them Due Process and access to counsel. Meanwhile, Americans worried that terrorists were planning yet more attacks. The Federal government fanned their fears with a "five-layer color-coded terror warning system." It has never fallen below yellow, nor has it ever risen above orange. And Americans witnessed the Enron scandal in 2002. They got a glimpse into the culture of greed and excess that marked corporate society during the decade. Sadly, they also learned that these were the folks Bush wanted to protect more than anyone else.
My 2002 was relatively unexciting. I got up every morning and rode the Chicago "El" to the law firm, where I shuffled papers and stapled things for about 10 hours a day. Still, I was very much a careerist in 2002. I wanted to prove that I, too, could make a lot of money. To do that, I was determined to get into a top law school and be a better lawyer than the ones for whom I collated copies at the office. I studied for the LSAT. I filled out applications. I chased down reference letters and made phone calls. I researched schools and their statistics. I thought I would waltz right into the Ivy League thanks to my undergraduate grades. But I am not a standardized test ace, and my lackluster LSAT score led all the top schools to reject me. This was a bitter pill for me. It was the first bad news I ever had in an academic pursuit. Yet I blamed the system for the result. I still loved learning; I did not let a bunch of lowly test-writers discourage me. I turned 25.
America invaded Iraq in 2003. Capitalizing on lingering fears about terrorism--and by convincing the American people that Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction"--President Bush claimed that Iraq posed a "direct threat" to American sovereignty. So in Bush's mind, it was no invasion at all; it was "self-defense." The military even titled it "Operation Iraqi Freedom," as if America actually cared whether Iraqis had a democratic constitution. The war swiftly toppled Saddam Hussein, leading President Bush to declare in May: "We have prevailed." But this was sheer delusion. A civil war broke out in Iraq. Resentment against American occupation made existing tensions even worse. American casualties rose, as did American commitments. The mission was not "accomplished." In fact, it continues to this day--with 6,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead so far.
I got into law school in 2003. I landed a partial scholarship at New York Law School, so I moved back to New York from Chicago. I was overjoyed to be back in school; it was so much better than slaving away at an office for $31,500 a year. For three years, I had not really challenged myself intellectually. But once I started law school, I rediscovered why I always liked being a student. I poured myself into study for twelve hours every day. I did very well in my classes, even if I stressed out about them too much. I felt a real sense of accomplishment. I enjoyed what I studied, even if I could not know at the time that it would not help me in law practice. In 2003, I still thought that the law would make me rich. I had every confidence that my grades would translate into career success. My old law firm in Chicago even said it would hire me the following summer. I also swam a lot in 2003; I went to the gym to counterbalance my studies, and I loved that, too. I liked the way my body looked. I had some difficulties with my parents, but that was about my only challenge in 2003. I turned 26.
America began to understand the Iraq war in 2004. To most people, it became obvious that Iraq had not been "liberated." In fact, more major battles took place in 2004 than in the previous year. Additionally, many people saw that American forces were not as heroic as some sources made them out to be. Americans saw shocking images from the torture chambers at Abu Ghraib prison. In those images, Americans did not appear as noble warriors, but rather torturers and villains. Furthermore, Americans began to appreciate how many civil liberties they had surrendered to advance the "war on terror." They began to see that America was losing serious credibility abroad. Detainee abuse cases became big news in 2004. John Kerry tried to bring these issues to the forefront by challenging Bush for the Presidency. But Bush harped on terror and gay marriage to handedly win the election. Although many Americans began to see how much dignity America was compromising in its open-ended quest to "defeat terror," they could not muster the courage to stop the government's spiral into lawlessness.
I finished my first year in law school in 2004. Relatively speaking, it had been a harrowing experience. I remember feeling overworked and stressed that spring. But my toils had been worth it: I was number 6 in my class of 400. Armed with my grades, I transferred to Loyola Law School in Chicago after my old law firm assured me that they would offer me a job that summer. Unfortunately, after my partner and I had rented an apartment and moved back to Chicago, the law firm told me "they could no longer afford to hire me." This was a serious disappointment. But I made the most of it and attended to my legal studies with the same zeal as ever. In the fall, I contracted a strange infection that damaged my inner ear. I lost my hearing in one ear for several months, and my equilibrium has never been perfect since. I had some troubles with my partner as he struggled with depression and anxiety. I turned 27.
In 2005, America saw who was really important in society. That year, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the gulf coast. President Bush famously did nothing, allowing the poor black people to drown and starve waiting for aid. He did not even tour the disaster site, choosing instead to fly overhead, remarking: "That looks pretty bad." Congress passed a law in 2005 limiting consumer access to bankruptcy, further supporting the big business and banking interests that formed the Republican base. As in 2002, we learned who was really important in George Bush's America: The big corporations and banks. At the same time, lenders and traders began profiting from Republican policies that deregulated the financial industry. A false prosperity began to develop, propelled by predatory loans and fraudulent credit practices.
My law school career neared its end in 2005. During the summer, I took my first real "legal job" working as a law clerk at a Chicago personal injury firm. I enjoyed the work, winning many accolades from my bosses for my writing, theory and research. I dove headlong into the theoretical aspects of the law, and that served me well as I molded strategies for every case that crossed my desk. At the same time, I took a passionate interest in constitutional law, which made sense because it represents the intersection between law, history, policy, politics, ethics and philosophy. I had never been so excited about the law. By 2005, I had developed a real fluency in legal doctrine; and I put that fluency to work for me. I had no reason to think that I would not be happy in the profession. I briefly separated from my partner during the spring, but we reunited stronger than ever a month later. My partner reconciled with my parents in 2005. Things were looking very promising for me. I turned 28.
President Bush's fortunes began to change in 2006. Public dissatisfaction grew as the war in Iraq ground endlessly on. Although Bush declared that his 2004 election victory gave him a "mandate" to broadly legislate on major issues, he suffered a critical setback in 2006 when Republicans lost their congressional majority. Without congressional support, Bush's sweeping conservative rhetoric became toothless. Although the Nation continued to bask in deregulated prosperity in 2006, more and more Americans saw that economic trouble lurked just around the corner. Unemployment inched upward in 2006. Mortgage defaults accelerated as consumers discovered that banks held "adjustable rate" powers that tacked interest onto principal, resulting in permanent, increasing debt. Although Wall Street remained strong, ominous signs about the Nation's financial future began to appear.
My life changed for the worse in 2006. In January, my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He fought hard, but by June he was dead. This cast a pall over my existence. I lost interest in the career path that had entranced me for the previous five years. If, after all, everything could end as quickly as it did for my father, why should I really stress out about petty things like money and jobs? Yet through all this I managed to finish law school and pass the Bar Exam. In hindsight, I don't know how I managed it. My perspective on life fundamentally changed in 2006. I carried that new perspective with me as I began practicing law in Chicago. I absolutely hated it. Practice was nothing like the happy legal theorizing I did in 2005. No, practice was all about money. My bosses ridiculed me for indecision. They mocked me for caring too much about justice when money was at stake. At the firm Holiday party that year, I saw "successful" lawyers falling all over each other drunk. They yelled, cursed, boasted and acted like children. At that moment, I decided that I could not practice law. I saw that law was a business, and it chafed against my very spirit. I did not know what I would do. I had spent three years pouring my heart into legal doctrine, yet I could not practice it. I didn't care. My father's death forced me to deeply question all the things that people are "supposed to do" in life. I turned 29.
America blundered ever closer to financial collapse in 2007. As the decade entered its later years, Bush lost more and more influence. Still, the war in Iraq droned forward, claiming more and more lives. Unemployment grew in 2007, even though Wall Street continued to report gains. Deregulation seemed to be working; people could still buy homes without putting money down. A deeper and deeper rift grew between rich and poor in 2007. The bubble was growing. And men like Bernie Madoff took full advantage of it.
Life did not get any easier for me in 2007. Having questioned my career in the law, I toyed with the idea of becoming a judge, or at least a judicial law clerk. If I could not practice, perhaps I could find a place for my intellectual passion in government. It was not to be; no one was hiring thanks to a "budget freeze." So I made ends meet by working as a legal consultant. This suited me. I did not have a boss; I was not under pressure to woo clients or make money. I just put in my time without stress and went home with a paycheck. True, it was not very stimulating. But it gave me a chance to meet interesting people and live my life in some peace. In August, however, disaster struck. My partner suffered a freak burn accident that left him in the hospital near death. He stayed there 35 days. His heart stopped twice on the operating table. I was at his side the whole time. He came home in September; our life has never been the same. I had to learn to be a nurse as well as a wage-earner. I dressed his wounds every day, I managed his medications and I held his hand when he was scared. It has been a full-time job, and it has not ended. Once again, I came face to face with death. I almost lost him, just one year after my father died. That experience convinced me yet again that I made the right decision to abandon "careers" and simply focus on living life without unrealistic expectations. Life is precious; and it can end more quickly that you can possibly imagine. There's no time to worry about inconsequential things. I turned 30.
In 2008, America experienced what happens when you deregulate financial markets. In 2008, America suffered the consequences of Bush-era economic policies. Wall Street collapsed in September, necessitating massive governmental intervention to rescue financial institutions that were "too big to fail." By divorcing government from business, Bush spurred artificial growth during his term. But in so doing, he gave free rein to greed, which ultimately destroyed the economy. Unemployment rose to dizzying heights. People could no longer pay their mortgages. Record numbers pled for government aid. For the first time in decades, Americans wanted increased government intervention into economic and social affairs. Seizing the moment, a new political force arose: Barack Obama. At this critical juncture in American history, Obama fascinated the public. He offered a new path to address modern challenges, a path that focused on oversight and socialization rather than deregulation. Critics claimed he would destroy the free market. But in 2008, Americans had had enough of the free market. They elected him in a landslide.
I spent 2008 caring for my partner as he recovered from his accident. I continued working low-stress consulting jobs. After years of study and toil, I finally had a chance to reflect on what I had become. I still loved the law; I simply did not like the business of law. I continued to study law and think about it every day. But I no longer exulted it. Rather, I began to assimilate my legal knowledge with all the other things I had learned to that point. I delved once more into philosophy and language in 2008. I re-read books I had not opened in ten years; and now I could actually understand them. I also rekindled my Wanderlust. I traveled to Berlin for the first time in years and went back three more times. I started speaking German again. And I started writing. I felt I had amassed enough learning and experience to finally express myself with some confidence. I began this blog in September; since then it has reinvigorated my life. I live to write now. I analyze everything with a new respect. Despite all the setbacks, I found something I loved--and it inspired me in a way I had never felt before. I turned 31.
America began traveling a new path in 2009. President Obama assumed a daunting task: Salvaging the United States from financial ruin. Despite vicious opposition from Republicans, he spent huge amounts in an attempt to "stimulate" floundering enterprises and spur job growth. He also committed America to reforming its health care system. Like perhaps no other social issue, health care is a moral symbol for progressive government. Under Bush, health care was just another article in commerce. That led to widespread injustice because many Americans could not obtain medical care for financial reasons. Obama recognized that and put America on a path to increased social activism in government. As laudable as that may be, the battle over health care has turned into a battle for America's soul. Can we become a more progressive people? Or are we so determined to "pay our own way" in life that we refuse to change for the better? In 2009, America struggled to adjust its focus. Plus Michael Jackson died and Tiger Woods cheated on his wife.
I continued to care for my partner in 2009. Although his physical condition improved, his mental condition did not. He began to suffer from debilitating depression during the winter, so much so that he could not get out of bed for weeks on end. This required me to stay at home full-time. Thanks to generous friends, I did this all year. But my partner did not get any better. During the summer, his depression swung into mania, turning both our lives upside down. Ultimately, he had to stay in the hospital for almost a month. After he came home, I once again assumed the nurse's role, but in a much more pervasive way. He has never been more dependent on me, now even for basic life necessities. I am happy to help him. Despite all the challenges, I wrote my blog almost every morning in 2009. In February, we moved back to New York in order to be closer to friends who can help us. I am happy to be back in the city I love. I turned 32.
I do not know what the future holds. But I am oddly confident. My writing has saved my life in so many ways. I have a feeling that 2010 will be a great year for me, and that I will apply all the lessons I learned over the past decade in the new one.
Wisdom truly emerges over time. By that standard, I am far richer today than I was in 2000.
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