Law in Contemporary Society

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WilliamCoombsFirstEssay 4 - 29 May 2016 - Main.EbenMoglen
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 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.
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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.

 



Revision 4r4 - 29 May 2016 - 12:44:23 - EbenMoglen
Revision 3r3 - 22 Apr 2016 - 22:20:06 - WilliamCoombs
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