This is a very good paragraph in which to practice making sentences shorter. Every one of these can be made shorter without losing anything. That becomes a model for how to prune the rest of the draft, which it very much needs.

This is a good first draft: it clears the brush away. Now we can see the issue. But the draft is also the issue: it doesn't sound very distinctive, it doesn't have your new ideas to offer. You haven't been able to create anything very new for yourself here, but you have explained why it's hard. That's really important to do. There are, after all, other personality states for which it wouldn't be so hard. You could write the next draft in such a way that only you could have written it, using the voice that would be yours if it weren't being checked by another voice made in law school, the personality state that has "qualms."

A Libra's Scale: Balance Between Law & Creativity

-- By LarryTaylorIII - 26 Feb 2021

I thought coming to Columbia would allow me to actualize the full range of my artistic interests without being consumed by the law. I have a passionate desire to make music, explicitly writing and performing songs within the genres of R&B and Hip-Hop, and I also have the interest to continue modeling. With Columbia situated in NY and one of the better schools I got into, I thought coming to the city would provide the opportunities necessary to continue my artistic pursuits and even take them to new heights given the cultural art hub that is NY. However, since the start of the school year and factoring in covid, I realized that this was a more challenging reality to bring into being than I thought. A significant part of that stems from the lack of creativity that I have experienced throughout law school. I found myself grappling with the fact that law school consumes my entire mental capacity daily and that the information I absorb from readings and classes often crowds out thoughts for anything else. Initially, I did not have an issue with the lack of creativity, considering that it is the first year of law school and learning the blackletter law requires a considerable amount of time and effort. However, as the school year progressed, I realized that my mental health was taking a hit due to stress and testing anxiety. I underutilized the creative outlets I usually use to balance my work and personal life. The realization brought to light that even though I may have multiple interests, the reality is there is only so much time in a day. The concept of the sacrifice made its way into my head as I found myself debating whether or not I would have to give up one aspect of myself in the pursuit of another. The professionalism that is the image of the legal field did not entirely mesh with the idea of the artist that I conceptualized for myself before coming to law school. I understand that the two are not genuinely irreconcilable. However, being in law school has shown me the difficulties of having multiple crafts and properly cultivating them. At times I find myself deciding between doing more work for law school to be prepared for classes and taking the time to decompress by freestyling and writing. Whatever I end up doing comes at the expense of the other, and I understand that’s the tradeoff that comes with making decisions, but the unbalance between the two unsettled me. I believe a significant reason for the unbalance between developing as a legal scholar and pursuing my artistic interests is the culture that is curated and indoctrinated by the students here at CLS. As I navigated classes, extracurricular activities, and conversations with peers, I recognized that pursuing big law opportunities is prominent and more supported than public interest. However, what was more interesting to me was the fact that even though we have not completed a full semester at that time, let alone a whole year, we were expected to be focused on summer opportunities that “determined” our futures. It was a stark contrast to the mentality I developed for how I wanted to approach law school coming in. I came into law school with a heavy scholarly mindset with a focus on merely learning about the law and developing skills that would make me the attorney I know I am capable of becoming. As the first semester progressed, I found myself succumbing to the pressures of applying to jobs before the winter break during the free time that I had that I wasn’t using to study. This further contributed to the unbalance and, I would say, severely limited my creativity. As I’ve grown to learn through the course, the structure of this year’s curriculum and law school, in general, is not framed in a way that is at times conducive to students feeling as though they have the autonomy to the extent they feel fulfilled. For myself, I have been juggling doing what I want to do, doing what I need to do, and doing what I have to do. The culture here at CLS posits each of those statements as mutually exclusive and comes at the expense of my wellbeing as I struggle to pass the imagination test of law school. The way that law school classes are set up, there seems to be little room for subjectivity in terms of how we think about the application of the law as it’s framed now and in the past. This seemingly objective manner of understanding, as well as the mental toll that results from the number of daily readings nearly, suffocates my creativity, and maybe that’s a testament to not finding the time to be inspired. I cannot quite say that I have discovered an answer to my qualms but I can say that this course has put me in a position to look at things in a way I could not before. The credence I give to the work I do in law school is dictated by grades but ultimately as Prof. Moglen has often said, grades do matter and are not an accurate representation of your ability to succeed in pursuing what you desire in the legal field. Keeping that in mind, I am being more intentional with how I use my time and making more of an effort to be proactive in cultivating a sense of balance between my artistic interests and my development as a legal scholar. There may be factors that continue to disrupt my balance but as long as I recognize that I’ll be fine at the end of the day I’ll always be able to maintain it and thrive creatively.

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