My Feet on the Street (or Marble). Where Do I Start?

Professor Wu used this metaphor to illustrate something he experienced in his work as a Supreme Court clerk: we put our best and brightest into surgery when we need people in preventative care. We have court-appointed defense lawyers who sleep during a capital murder trial, and a pro-bono firm partner taking the case at the appellate level when the client is already on death row. I want to go into preventative care.

Building My Boat(s)

This class cultivates my desire to build my own fleet so that in the future I can tack in every direction. Right now, I am building a simple Sunfish that can sail--even if there is little room aboard and it cannot go very fast or far. I want to build a racing trimaran that can cut through the water at ridiculous speeds. I will build a motorboat for when the wind dies down but I still have somewhere to go. I want to build a yacht where I can enjoy the fruits of my labor. And I want to be so good at building boats that I engender trust from my clients, and can inspire others to build on their own.

To begin with, let's get the Holmes quote out of the way. It comes from a letter to Frederic Pollock:

Chauncey Wright, a nearly-forgotten philosopher of real merit, taught me when young that I must not say necessary about the universe, that we don't know whether anything is necessary or not. I believe that we can bet on the behavior of the universe in its contact with us. So I describe myself as a bet-abilitarian.

What this does or does not have to do with anything I leave to others to decide.

I of course have a particular problem in commenting on this essay. It is too much about me, and too much of that is flattering (if not flattery). I hope that eventually it will be clear whether some of the social processes I designed and set in motion justify the praise unduly lavished now on the minor phenomenon of a teacher merely but seriously teaching his students.