| |
WilliamCoombsFirstEssay 4 - 29 May 2016 - Main.EbenMoglen
|
|
META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstEssay" |
| | This morning I drank the best fresh-squeezed orange juice I’ve ever had in my life. Every sip had juice vesicles – extra pockets of juice within the juice. Tell me what’s impossible now. | |
> > |
There's a great deal here now, vastly improved over the first draft,
focused in the right place, and very effective. But from the law
teacher's point of view, the pivot of the draft is the minimalist,
intentionally half-revelatory comment about "cold call anxiety"
strong enough to deprive you of appetite and change your eating
habits.
This is an emotion close to what we call "stage fright," or the
surprisingly widespread American fear of public speaking. If you
have it in law school, perhaps it also affected your early
experiences in acting class. This is neither something to be
ashamed of nor something to be suffered through. Now that you are
in a mood to do the impossible, you will be glad to know that this
is by no means impossible to change.
The cognitive behavior therapy approaches ("think of the audience as
though they were all in their underwear," or some such piffle) may
provide a "technique" for overcoming the stage fright. But, as you
see, there's more to it than can be reached that way, and much more
benefit to you, broadly and not just specifically about law school
classes, from approaching the change through a different route.
Another Billy, neither stoically surviving chemo nor silently
attending law school, concentrating on adding to his skills in
helping people make things happen in society using words, one act of
speaking up at a time, is coming into existence, reblending parts
that haven't been eble to work together so effectively before. Of
course he needs good orange juice first thing in the morning, and
he'll make sure he gets it. Whatever helps to prompt, nurture, and
sustain that personality state you will recognize and reinforce. If
the man who was Cassius Clay could take all he had and make Muhammad
Ali out of himself, you are trying to tell us both, you can do
something just as big. You're right. But you should take fewer
punches to the head anyway.
| |
|
|
|
|
This site is powered by the TWiki collaboration platform. All material on this collaboration platform is the property of the contributing authors. All material marked as authored by Eben Moglen is available under the license terms CC-BY-SA version 4.
|
|
| |