This probably serves me right for reading self help books as part of my eclectic holiday reading schedule, but I came across the following passage recently in Harold Kushner's, When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough (1986). Sounds a bit like a James Bond movie (The World is Not Enough?) Anyway, Kushner writes:
"The Talmud says there are three things one should do in the course of one's life: have a child, plant a tree, and write a book. They all represent ways of investing our creative, generative energy in things which will endure after we are gone, and will represent the best that was in us."
I've actually done all three, although I'm not 100% sure if writing law books counts. I also don't know if planting trees in an elementary school "green" program many years ago is really what Kushner had in mind ie if someone else TELLS you to plant the tree, rather than you voluntarily deciding to plant it. But it got me thinking about writing as a creative activity and the extent to which our law books and law review articles are like our children in the sense of being something that represents our creative and generative energy. Or are they just something we do to earn money and climb the U.S. news ladder? I'm sure people feel differently about this and probably not many of us right purely for professional purposes - we must get some sense of personal satisfaction out of it. Otherwise, why would we be professors expressing our own views rather than corporate lawyers working for our clients' benefit?
I remember some years ago talking to a friend of mine who relentlessly pursued theater and music as a young student, and then became a surgeon later in life. When I asked him if he missed the more creative pursuits, he said that he found that surgery was a perfectly creative and expressive outlet for him.
fuck school
Posted by: lindsay proski | January 15, 2010 at 02:10 PM