In which the author experiences a glimmer of self-consciousness

"Nietzsche’s ressentiment is not resentment, but resentment that has become internalized, in which the weak have rationalized their own weakness by inversely privileging it as morally superior to the strong."

(Nicholas Birns, "Ressentiment and Counter-Ressentiment: Nietzsche, Scheler, and the Reaction Against Equality," http://www.nietzschecircle.com/RessentimentMaster.pdf)

The rigors of law

Yesterday morning I found an admittedly mean-spirited pleasure in reading an article in the Times about the woes of new lawyers.  Since I have on several occasions considered and then rejected the idea of law school, even going as far as to register and pay for--but never actually take--the LSAT twice, I like to see that newbie lawyers are suffering.  It suggests that my failure to make a decision may actually have been a wise choice in disguise.  I have nothing against individual lawyers; I have met some who are brilliant, good people and others who are arrogant, ill-natured, and quite stupid. Still, for some reason, I find it vindicating (a word whose similarity to vindictive I am just now noting) to see the law profession stumble.

As it turns out, law schools, like graduate departments in the humanities are so arranged that, in order for the programs themselves to survive, they must lure in far more students than the future market for their services will support.  Law schools, according to the Times, advertise inflated post-matriculation employment rates to make potential students believe that a law degree is a good investment.  The tweaking of statistics has produced a veritable army of underemployed lawyers, battalions of temp and contract lawyers, many of whom only manage to earn $60k/year until after the first 10 or so years post-graduation.  This, apparently, is insufficient to pay off law school debts and support young attorneys in the lifestyle they expect to attain by attending law school  (i.e., purchasing $350,000 homes).  The article does not ask us to pity the new graduates exactly.  It points out the irresponsible tactics the law schools use to attract students as well as the irresponsible choices made by those students who allow themselves to be attracted.  

In addition to my ugly delight in all of this, I was also more innocently interested in the young lawyers' plight because it resembles the experience of many who seek PhDs in the humanities.  The article acknowledges--and I think this is important and perhaps the most interesting aspect of the problem to me--that even if the truth were presented to the potential law student in its starkest, most accurate terms, many of those applicants would ignore the dim prospects for success, or at least refuse to see that dimness as relevant to their individual situations, which I guess is the same thing.  I know exactly how such unreasoning hope works because I experienced it myself in relation to academia.  One source in the article refers to this brand of magical thinking as "exceptionalism," that is, the nearly unshakeable conviction that whatever the numbers say, whatever the science of probability illuminates about the chances of making law school pay (since that seems to be the goal), and whatever you witness through report and individual observation about the experiences of others, any individual poor sop will perceive her own personal chances as better, as bound to exceed the average.  She will beat the curve.  With hard work, persistence, and good letters of recommendation, she can be a partner, a corporate lawyer, a justice department lawyer.  And why shouldn't she think that?  Isn't such ambition as American as the McRib?  You never succeed if you don't try.  Tie your wagon to a star, or whatever. 

Apparently, as the young man who headlines in the article reveals, the law degree is a reward in itself, so, even with underemployment and staggering debt, the holder of a JD can find some satisfaction merely in his or her lawyerhood. Or, put another way, regardless of whether one ever works as a lawyer, regardless of what kind of law one practices and to what end, regardless of how well or how honestly one practices the law, and regardless of whether one pays one's law school debts or just waits for other lawyers to engineer a bail-out--regardless of any of this, to be a lawyer simply is prestigious.  So, maybe I made a mistake after all.  It would seem that self satisfaction and the respect and admiration of others might in fact be achieved merely by earning a bachelor's degree and polishing off a two-year program of torts, patents, civil procedure, and remedial writing at any of thousands of fine law degree issuing institutions.  Wonder what I did with that LSAT prep book?

Rich Trash

Valerie Feigen, who co-owns the Edit boutique on Lexington Avenue — “a luxury shopping experience for women of distinction and style” — has hired Ms. Reich repeatedly over the past three years. “The perfect bag or a great pair of shoes can give you so much pleasure, but it can torture you when you don’t know where to put it,” Ms. Feigen said. “When your possessions are out of control, I think it’s very hard to be organized in general about your life. You don’t want your possessions to own you.”  (Organize This!  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09) 

Today, the Times brings us a new example of how the rich spend their spare cash:  they pay a certain Prada-toting Ms. Reich (or another like her) $150/hr to tell them to throw out garbage bags full of their lightly used toys, clothes, appliances, and other possessions and to organize the rest of their expensive crap into pricey plastic boxes.  This is how the rich stimulate the economy, how they create jobs.  Ms. Reich's organizing services even help save the rich some money by exposing pilfering by their nannies whom they can then fire.

All of this seems mildly nauseating to me.  Perhaps it shouldn't.  After all, the rich earned their money and should be free to spend it as they wish, without the judgment of the less enterprising.  Plus, such outlays are justified because they reduce stress.  And with mountains of unneeded stuff comes a lot of stress.  Ms. Reich points helpfully to the leveling character of stress: “It’s a high-end problem, but the stress is the same either way."  Biochemically, maybe--and I would want to see some proof of that.  But qualitatively, as experienced, all stress is not the same.  I despair of the capacity of the rich to conceive of what stress means in the lives of many of the rest of us.  Most of the middle class refuse to see the difference as well, because they want to share something with the rich, even if it's just the experience of "hardship."  Finally, I wonder what Thoreau would think of Ms. Feigen's (inadvertent?) allusion to Walden in the last line above.

Fun in the Shower and other Ironic Delights

Tuesday morning in the shower I was doing this thing I do. First I rub some bodywash all over my torso and arms, then I cross my arms and extend them straight out from my chest, so they form a squarish kind of circle. The idea is to create a large, round disk of soap inside the circle of my arms. I then blow downward on this sheet to form a giant bubble. Every so often a wobbly, misshapen bubble comes together for a split second before popping. I never try more than once. As soon as the sphere pops, which is always and immediately, I repress a twinge of disappointment, rinse off, and go about the desultory business of drying and dressing and acting like an adult. That’s where things were headed Tuesday. I blew down into the soapy sheet, the bubble blobbed into shape momentarily, and then it seemed to disappear in a blink. And, I guess I did blink, because when I put my arms down, there it was: an enormous, perfect, iridescent bubble hovering before me. Verily, a bubble as big as my flipping head. And it was there for an eternity of about 1.5 seconds. The rest of the day, whenever I thought of the bubble, which was often, it appeared to me such a gift that my heart would throb and my throat close. The only word to describe the feeling is delight, a pure shimmering delight.

When I told my parents about the bubble at dinner, my dad said, “hmm, maybe it was an angel,” with EXACTLY the kind of cynicism I would have felt if someone told me this story. And strangely, that ALSO filled me with delight.

Some of this and some of that

It's hard for me to write these days. I think that in changing jobs I lost track of something central to how I've viewed myself for the past 14 years. I'm not sure what that is exactly, but in consequence, I feel newly confused or disoriented in transferring my thoughts into voice--sort of shaky about the voice I hear as I write. Or maybe, I can't think of anything worth filling out with that voice.

I am an undergraduate again and spend my days memorizing facts about the body. I take tests over drug actions and interactions, side effects and adverse effects, peaks and troughs. I learn to operate mechanical beds and tympanic membrane thermometers. I put things in lists and draw charts. I can't think of how to make this interesting.

When I was 12 or 13 and believed that my whole family existed solely to embarrass me, I held my father in the deepest contempt for his appreciation of self-help books. As a college student and then a graduate student, I lowered my eyelids and thought dismissive thoughts about pop-psychology. Now, before I sleep, I read David Burns or pop-Buddhism and try to charm the wrinkles from my brain by thinking about my breath. I wonder: is this getting old or getting dull?

In May, taking me completely by surprise, the Russian asked me for a divorce. He wants to start a family. He tells me that when he sees men with small children at the grocery store he feels pain. Also, my personality annoys him—deeply and in ways that his ESL status prevents him from expressing except obliquely in response to my probing. I suppose these are good reasons not to stay married. Who am I to say nay? I think about how he’d better hurry up and find someone to bear these children, these transmitters of Russian genes, and I wonder why I have no yearning when I see children in the grocery store. Mostly, when I see children I feel dread or irritation, especially if the children are not obviously connected to some nearby adult or are making a loud noise or one that threatens to become loud. The children I know are bright, piquant, and something like frenetic. They create an atmosphere that is exactly the opposite of the dim, dusty library aisles where I have experienced my fullest sense of content. I mean that entirely.

My day and "the like"

At Kaleidoscope today with my mom, niece, and two nephews, ages 65 to 3, I made a mask, a crown, and a necklace. I ran from room to room, like the White Queen in Through the Looking-Glass, terrified a child would go lost. Later, I escaped to the bathroom to pose and make exasperated faces at myself in the mirror. I stayed longer than was seemly. Going home, my four-year-old niece told me that my g's don't turn up enough at the ends; my a's and e's are "crunched." At dinner, I ate a half a slab of ribs, threw my shoe at a crow with a broken wing, and banged on the fence with stick. Kaleidoscope = "a continually shifting pattern, scene, or the like." I am unexpectedly pleased by this phrase, "the like," and the possibility of being like something that is itself unfixed.

Backyard Desmesne

I mowed down the violets in mid-April, and
Cut a swath through the daffodils as well—the blooms
Crisply brown—I pronounced their season finished.
I roared with ruinous glee over dandelions and sent clover
Flying, a burst of wet green, the smell of Neighborhood.
I was machined up, a disaster on legs, the lady and the law,
Ruler of all my backyard desmesne.

June 7, 2010


Reassurances

I sought attics and closets as a child and could often be found under a covered table or tucked behind a door. I hid in corners, under beds, and behind recliners—anywhere dark, snug, quiet, and out of view, as if. As if forgotten places could hold off the loud fading of Adult. As if I were looking for a maximum closeness, some limit or boundary that would batten me up, put a brake on the pulling apart and scattering of self into the world. And now, in rare minutes, in a quiet room at low light, I can still find some solid calm of lonely, a steady holding-it-together in my skin.

June 7, 2010