Leaving History

The thought of graduating from law school is making me surprisingly nostalgic. I was more than ready to leave high school and itching to see what college was all about. When the time came to leave college I was ready too, though petrified about what came next. When it was time to leave my job I may not have been ready, but I had grown tired of Boston.

Now I feel like I just got the hang of law school. I’m finally in my element and growing in the ways that I want to grow. I’m taking advantage of my skills and learning so many different things. I have more genuine friends here than I have ever had in one place. But everyone is leaving – not just me. So if I stayed I would be enjoying the weather alone.

Thinking about all the people I’m leaving I worry that my history and experiences are being left behind. There is no community with knowledge of me as a whole. I feel fragmented. Old friends have a special value, offering continuity with oneself. Even if you like the new you, better than the old you, knowing how much change you have achieved can be comforting.

Materialism and Virtue, Marketing and Lemmings

When did our society get confused,
Thinking that gluttonous consumption was a virtue,
A president elected on the "moral" ticket advises us to spend our money on cheap Chinese goods to make the economy stronger, the land fills bigger and our savings accounts smaller.
Thinking that materialism is not idol worship if the goods are disposable.
Commercial announcers bellow from stomaches rather than taste the lies in their own mouth. Forked tongues shirking responsibility for words others wrote.
(Blame Adam and Eve! They are the crazy fools who want to buy it! They DEMAND it -- of course they didn't even know about it until I told them.)
I'm wasting all of my money so I think that you should too, otherwise you will be richer than I am and you will devalue my Brand Name-Trade Marked bag. (You've got to keep the good will of the company- after all, companies are people too)
Just because you need a firm job and litigation experience.
Because no one wears big hats.

Where does this path of least social resistance get us? We will have friends. These friends will know us just as little as we know ourselves.