Futurelawyer

Slobbing For A Time In St. Petersburg

 I first read Travels With Charley in college. Since then, I have tried to live my life with a healthy dose of Steinbeck like voraciousness. As an overachiever in high school, it never occurred to me that laziness and lack of movement towards a goal were sometimes noteworthy accomplishments. Steinbeck changed my mind. Like him, I tend to overindulge in whatever activity I find myself, including lack of activity. Today seems to be one of those days. Thanks to my understanding spouse, I have no one nagging me to change. She is a unique woman indeed. So, raise a glass to Steinbeck, and smoke that cigar. You don't have an infinite number of opportunities left.

“I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

#TBT - Where Is Your Law Library?

I was trying to remember the last time I pulled one of these books off the shelf, and read a case in them. These Reporters go back to the founding of Florida in the mid Nineteenth century. I stopped buying them sometime in the nineties. First, case law became available on CDs, and now, as you are aware, legal research is done at a computer terminal. There is something magical, however, about sitting at this table, surrounded by open books, searching for a case that helps you in your current matter. I am beginning to sound like Michael Wade, pining after the days when a leather bound book was in my hands, holding the knowledge I needed. What do we miss with the Internet? Sights, sounds, smells, touch, and atmosphere. We have left the cloister and are bombarded with words made up of electrical signals. I hope there is room for both in our future.

"Conspiracy" Never Goes Out Of Style

Conspiracy - Peter Thiel, Gawker, Et. Al. Ryan Holiday hits a home run with his book about the Peter Thiel conspiracy to take down Gawker over an insult delivered on the air. After the media site outed Thiel as gay, Thiel parlayed his millions into a brilliant conspiracy to support litigation against the media empire; which, by the way, went down in my home Courthouse in St. Petersburg, Florida. Ryan's book uses the fact that the story touches on every human emotion and foible to weave a tale of intrigue, sex, courtroom drama, secretive litigation financing, and voyeurism, both sexual and otherwise, and gives us a modern day "Bonfire of the Vanities". Every human has a special interest. Every human is capable of having and keeping secrets. Combine modern media hype, and human nature, and the facts contained in this book are inevitable. It is amazing to me that such a fact pattern is sensational and surprising to many of us. History doesn't change; nor, do we, as human beings. We are on a roller coaster, and the only thing left for us is to enjoy the ride. Thanks to story tellers like Ryan Holiday, we all get the chance to enjoy it. Time is finite. Use some of yours to buy and read this book.

How Do You Know You Aren't One Of The Dunces?

A Confederacy Of Dunces - 40 Years. As ever, Michael Wade has sparked memories and deep thinking in me, with his reference to this miracle of modern literature, "A Confederacy of Dunces", written in the Sixties and pushed into print by Walker Percy, winner of the National Book Award, and part of the triumvirate of literary greatness that populated my college, Loyola University of the South. Along with my professors, John William Corrington and Miller Williams, Walker Percy was the dean of Southern literature, and taught at Loyola a few years after I left for law school. The tragic story of John Kennedy Toole, who committed suicide before the book was published, is a novel in itself. But, it is no coincidence that Toole got his title from Jonathan Swift, whose sharp satire roiled British society and hypocrisy in general. Think of this book as Mad Magazine for the literary class. But, it is more than that. What better time to read about the laughable hypocrisy of the confederacy of dunces who populate positions of power in our society?

Bookshelves And Nosy People

Execupundit BookShelves Partial Disclosure. Michael Wade writes about the current practice of background shaming, in which viewers of webinars or participants in Zoom meetings look for embarrassing or otherwise objectionable books on the shelves in the participant background. He then posts a photo of a portion of his massive print library. Since I am follower, and not  a leader, I felt that I had to post my own partial book shelf, which includes two print copies of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure and Trawick's Florida Practice and Procedure, along with some of my hundreds of books in the foreground. If you can glean my character from the photo, I congratulate you on your mind reading abilities.

The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis Was A Christian Stoic..Who Knew?

Screwtape Letters. Michael Wade cites The Screwtape Letters as a book he comes back to at times like this. It prompted me to remember the C.S. Lewis book, which is a series of letters from the Devil to Wormwood, his underling, advising him how to tempt a human suffering during the horrors of World War II. It reads like a list of things a Stoic would never do in time of trial. Be angry at others. Encourage the human to let his mind worry about all the disasters befalling him. Feed the human's anxiety about the future by prompting him to try to control events beyond his control. You don't need to believe in God to understand that a rational human realizes that tragedy and evil are going to happen, and that accepting it and living anyway is the best path to follow. Thanks, Michael, for reminding me that great authors have dealt with stuff like Coronavirus throughout our history. Screw Screwtape.

Ancient Wisdom...Make Time For It

Ryan Holiday reminds us that 2020 isn't the first scary time in history. Winston Churchill, in 1939, with Hitler invading everywhere, read old fiction. Why? He found it comforting. This sounds crazy, until you realize that the only way to deal with current scary times is to read those who lived through their own. In fiction, and reading, we see all of the human tragedies unfold. We see greed, envy, lust, anger, evil, and every sort of human suffering. We also see good, triumph over evil, and every sort of human goodness. Reading all of our forebears who thought to write down what they lived, is the best way to prepare for, and then deal with, our own repeated history. Because everything that is, has happened before. Different humans, same story. If you are bored, it is your own fault. Because many who have lived before have something important to teach us. Ryan admits that he is just an aggregator of history and fiction and philosophy. I call him a wisdom aggregator. He admits that he is just a marketer, and he is very good at it. But, he is marketing something every intelligent human needs...the tools to survive and thrive in a scary world. Just like news aggregators of today, who cull tidbits from thousands of sources, and publish them for consumption on the Internet, or in newspapers, he collects, reads and redistributes ancient philosophers, and writers, and novelists and others. What better use of time for Churchill as he prepared to deal with Hitler than to cull the wisdom of others? As Ryan writes today:

"You may think you don’t have time for poetry or theater or ancient mythology. We promise, you do. You have to. Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Aristotle, Montaigne, Plato, Shakespeare–the greatest minds in history quoted and adapted fictional works as though they were fact. That’s how valuable fiction is. If you haven’t discovered that already, if all you remember about the Iliad is it was required reading in high school or the Aeneid is it has something to do with the founding of Rome—you have been misguided. You were not given the tools and techniques necessary to understanding and enjoying humanity’s greatest works of art."

 

 

 

 

Kerouac And The Eternity Of Zen

Jack Kerouac - Golden Eternity. One of St. Petersburg's claims to fame was the residence here briefly before his death. But, the free flowing writing that he made famous was, in my opinion, eclipsed by his adoption of Zen principles of the eternity of the universe that are captured in Stoic philosophy. Nothing is good or bad. Everything is the same over time. We live in an eternity of kindness and self illusion, if we live at all. In this great letter to his ex-wife, Kerouac touches on themes that every human should consider when we are mired in useless angst over our daily struggles. He tended to write free flowing stream of consciousness poetry, and this is a perfect example:

"The world you see is just a movie in your mind.
Rocks dont see it.
Bless and sit down.
Forgive and forget.
Practice kindness all day to everybody
and you will realize you’re already
in heaven now.
That’s the story.
That’s the message.
Nobody understands it,
nobody listens, they’re
all running around like chickens with heads cut
off. I will try to teach it but it will
be in vain, s’why I’ll
end up in a shack
praying and being
cool and singing
by my woodstove
making pancakes."

Remember, today, when you are struggling to make sense of the daily emergencies, that it is all just a movie in your mind. You get to play all the parts, and you get to write the script. It is up to you.

Home Libraries Are Nice...But You Can't Take Them On A Cruise Ship

Home Library. When Michael Wade posts that he is envious of someone's home library, pay attention. He is enamored with novelist Larry McMurtry's library, pictured here. But, alas, neither Michael's library nor Larry's will do me much good on an ocean liner in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. So, I will curl up in the ship library with my trusty Kindle and tablet, on both of which I have thousands of books, ranging from classical philosophy and literature to modern newspapers and magazines. I can read my hometown paper, the Tampa Bay Times, on the PressReader app, along with hundreds of other papers and magazines, all while looking out a the ocean, sitting in my comfortable deck chair. So, to each his own, Michael and Larry. To each his own.

Lawyer Blog AND Poetry AND Philosophy? Why Not?

My favorite current writer about Stoicism, Ryan Holiday, has a piece today about being okay with being different.We are each unique. Why do we spend so much time trying to be like everybody else? I have been called eccentric, and worse, for filling a law blog with other stuff, like poetry and philosophy. Don't be afraid to be different. Be who you are. You will be surprised at how many others you will give the courage to be themselves. In Holiday's words:

"There has always been an odd streak in the Stoics. Zeno used to practice begging people for money, even though he had plenty. Cleanthes worked as a manual laborer for so long, some in Athens thought it might be a front for something. Cato used to walk around bareheaded and barefooted, wearing dingy clothing. Seneca was completely unafraid both of regularly practicing poverty (despite his wealth) and unafraid of showing his wealth (despite his reputation as a Stoic). He also experimented with vegetarianism at a time when it was deeply transgressive in Rome. And can you imagine the scene Marcus Aurelius created when he would write and read philosophy while the gladiatorial games raged on beneath his box seats in the coliseum?

The Stoics were not afraid to be themselves, to be seen as weird. In fact, that’s something Epictetus said: If you want to improve, if you want to achieve wisdom, you have to be okay looking strange or even clueless from time to time. Epictetus also tells us the story of Agrippinus, who refused to keep a low profile during Nero’s reign, who refused to conform or tamp down his independent thinking. Why do this, Agrippinus was asked, why not be like the rest of us?

Because you consider yourself to be only one thread of those which are in the tunic. Well then it was fitting for you to take care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no design to be anything superior to the other threads. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then do you tell me to make myself like the many? And if I do, how shall I still be purple?

Beautifully said. And a reminder to all of us today. Embrace who you really are, embrace what makes you unique. Let your freak flag fly—because chances are it’s special. Shine on you crazy diamond. Be purple. Be the small part that makes the rest bright.

We desperately need you to do that."