| | Fuck This Stupid Rule
Yesterday I spent what felt like an eternity - probably around 6 hours - trying to learn how to apply the Rule Against Perpetuities. Over and over, I thought I had it, but when I got to the next fact pattern I fell on my face again. Admittedly, math is not my strength, and my ability to imagine people dying at age 5 or procreating at age 80 just doesn't cut it. What's wrong with my brain, I thought, why can't I understand this? Then it happened: I realized that I don't have to learn the Rule Against Perpetuities! It's my education, damnit, and I don't give a shit about this stupid rule! I'd rather learn more about the tragedy of the commons or the public trust doctrine than wrap my brain around some legal fiction that all but a handful of jurisdictions have done away with. I think I just might write in my exam that I - along with the vast majority of US jurisdictions - think this is a stupid rule, and that perhaps it's time to strike it from the standard 1L Property syllabus. So what if I get a bad grade in Property? I feel empowered. | | | The patronizing tone of the comments (save Leslie’s) reminded me again of what I find to be the most unfortunate aspect of law school: The assumption that we are all the same. That we want to work at big firms, just graduated from Yale, have well educated parents, are Type As, and don’t know ourselves. I saw this class as a break from that – I thought that in “Crazy Man’s Class” I would be taken for what I said and wrote. | |
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< | But instead, this class has been a bit like a high-school relationship: A lot of games. Only instead of “I really like him but I pretend that I don’t” there is “you say you don’t care about grades but we know you do” and “do you think I’d criticize the hell out of your essay if I didn’t think it was good?” So much game playing; it’s exhausting. When I said that I decided that the Rule Against Perpetuities was not worth my time, I meant it. I wasn’t looking for reassurance, and I certainly did not go add flow charts to my outline. Why did Will, Molissa and Eben’s comments all make this about me? Who cares how I feel about property? Why did Will ponder the probable nature of my reaction to a bad grade, rather than his own? | >
> | But instead, this class has been a bit like a high-school relationship: A lot of games. Only instead of “I really like him but I pretend that I don’t” there is “you say you don’t care about grades but we know you do” and “do you think I’d criticize the hell out of your essay if I didn’t think it was good?” So much game playing; it’s exhausting. When I said that I decided that the Rule Against Perpetuities was not worth my time, I meant it. I wasn’t looking for reassurance. Why did the subsequent comments all make this about me? Who cares how I feel about property? | | | Is this not the mindset that we have been decrying all semester? For months, we have been criticizing the system that turns us into a herd of sheep, jumping through an insane series of hoops – writing competitions, student organization boards, EIP – because everybody else does. The other day, at the CLS International Advisory Board luncheon, the CLS alumna next to me readily admitted that she never wanted to be a big-firm lawyer but just went with the flow and this is what happened. She made partner, but she is still unhappy. Yet I can’t feel compassion for her. Just like I can’t feel bad about people who stress out about competition in law school. It’s a choice. | |
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< | We can all choose to march to our own drum. So if you decide not to, stop complaining about other people imposing demands on you. Stop complaining about the competition. It’s your choice to compete. Every day, we wake up and choose to go to school. So I chose to ignore the Rule Against Perpetuities and go for a run in Central Park. I shared it on the wiki because I thought that maybe my “bright idealism” would give someone else a dose of perspective.
We are all individuals, and we should not assume anything about the people we are surrounded by. Molissa may choose a color-coded outline and shoot for an A, but that does not preclude me from choosing to read a novel instead and get a B. If that means I cannot clerk at the Supreme Court, then I don’t want to clerk at the Supreme Court. | >
> | We can all choose to march to our own drum. So if you decide not to, don't complain about other people imposing demands on you. Don't complain about the competition. It’s your choice to compete. Every day, we wake up and choose to go to school. So I chose to ignore the Rule Against Perpetuities and go for a run in Central Park. We are all individuals, and we should not assume anything about the people we are surrounded by. Some students may choose to color-code their outlines and compete for As, but that does not preclude me from choosing to read a novel instead and get a B. If that means I cannot clerk at the Supreme Court, then I don’t want to clerk at the Supreme Court. | | | We live once (I think) and what we do with that one shot is for us to decide. For each of us, it is what we make it. There is no such thing as “have to” or “should.” You do what you choose to do. | | | -- MolissaFarber - 08 May 2009 | |
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> | Molissa, I did not mean to upset you and I'm sincerely sorry that I did. I have changed the post slightly to make it less about you, which of course it was not. But I did read your original post several times, and though you may not have meant it, I found the tone to be patronizing ("bright idealism" and the last paragraph implying that I cared even though I said I didn't). Please know that I don't in any way judge your color-coding or flowcharting or anything else that is a sign of healthy ambition. We're all different, and that's wonderful.
I think Walker's hypothesis about divisions based on income rings true. The split, however, is probably symptomatic rather than causal. I think the Swedish saying "children that are alike play the best together" (doesn't sound very good in English) applies in law school and in life; in the long term, we tend to gravitate toward people who share our values, and people withe the same values tend to end up in roughly the same income bracket.
-- AnjaHavedal? - 08 May 2009 | | |
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