new thinking
Below is a link to an MP3 I recorded of tonight, and my first torts brief on a case with personal interst to me:
http://1thinlayer.com/first_torts_brief.mp3
they make fun of my last name too…enjoy that humor…haha
Tonight was a very intense night at law school. It’s like the level of thinking I have never really engaged my brain in, except when I absolutely had to in do or die situations, was the baseline expectation for how our brains are to think.
I felt like my brain was pushed to the edge of my capabilities tonight. The teacher went so fast with the concepts, and people were responding so intelligently to him, and the level of intelligence in the room kept the energy in the air just buzzing with intensity.
It was a wake up call to say the least. Not a bad one. Not a wake up call that I can’t handle this, or I have gotten myself in too deep…although those thoughts did briefly come to my mind, but mostly a wake up call to start using it or losing it. My brain can still handle this level of intensity…if I exercise it, and discipline it to. It’s just like exercising my body. I can still run 6 miles…if I discipline my body too, and keep it up.
The other thing that was intense for me to see tonight was how the professor is already engaging us in the classis Socratic method style of teaching, that is really geared towards FORCING us to change our mode of thinking. AND THAT WAS EXCITING. I think law school is going to be my new self-help program. My new addiction. My new form of therapy. I know lots of theater people who use acting as a form of self-help because it forces them to get outside of themselves. Same with the law for me. I tend to get stuck in certain modes of thinking, and I form my beliefs on that, and I get comfortable with my beliefs. But tonight, the professor in Torts (harms/injuries/wrongdoings) taught us, well more like forced us to let go of our comfort thoughts, and to realize that we may not have all the answers figured out. He not only challenged our beliefs, and made us realize that there really are no answers sometimes, but that the method in which we find answers must change completely.
I tend to try to find similarities in concepts (and people). Tonight the professor tried to beat this out of me. He drilled in me and others over and over again, that there is not similarities between things such as a tort and a crime, and there are not similarities between negligence and an assault. These are the modes of thinking of the law. To find the differences is the key. I remember someone telling me once that later in life people start to realize that they can't be friends with everyone and the way to weed people out and to find out ones truest friends is to start noticing the differences in the people in my life. If i always focus on the similarities, it will never help me come to any conclusions to who i should be focusing my energy on. Focusing on the differences will help me figure out which differences i can live with in friends. Cuz of course I can live with any similarities with friends, but that doesn't always help me get a conclusion as to who i should focus on being friends with. Same with the laws. Well not being freinds with them, but coming to conclusions on what moral answers one can live with are discovered by looking at the differences. It’s VERY black and white thinking. Just the mode of thinking I have been trying to get myself far away from recently. But I guess it is the only way our society is set up to handle the law. I am ok with that…for now…but I would love to see the legal system embrace more grey area thinking in the long run. Maybe that’s what my career in the law will try to change.
Another amazing story about tonight, is that I got called on to brief the first case. It was a small case from the “dark ages” (1450). It was interesting because it involved a case where a guy was defending himself from an assault and he put his stick up to block the blow, and ended up injuring the person standing behind him The question was is this person at fault, even though it was in self defense that he injured the third party. The answer is yes…it can still be his fault.
I told the class and the professor how ironic it was that I briefed this case, as my good friend's brother was in jail for a similar harm to another. I told them that he injured a person with a knife to the neck, when he and his friend were attacked by gangbangers. He brandished a knife to scare the attackers off, and while swinging it behind him, a person got hit from it behind him, in the neck. He got 7 years in prison for this. Is that right? According to this case it is, although it is from the dark ages, and by now people have learned to get out of situations like this if they can prove it was totally an accident…or can they. That was the basic premise of class tonight.
http://1thinlayer.com/first_torts_brief.mp3
they make fun of my last name too…enjoy that humor…haha
Tonight was a very intense night at law school. It’s like the level of thinking I have never really engaged my brain in, except when I absolutely had to in do or die situations, was the baseline expectation for how our brains are to think.
I felt like my brain was pushed to the edge of my capabilities tonight. The teacher went so fast with the concepts, and people were responding so intelligently to him, and the level of intelligence in the room kept the energy in the air just buzzing with intensity.
It was a wake up call to say the least. Not a bad one. Not a wake up call that I can’t handle this, or I have gotten myself in too deep…although those thoughts did briefly come to my mind, but mostly a wake up call to start using it or losing it. My brain can still handle this level of intensity…if I exercise it, and discipline it to. It’s just like exercising my body. I can still run 6 miles…if I discipline my body too, and keep it up.
The other thing that was intense for me to see tonight was how the professor is already engaging us in the classis Socratic method style of teaching, that is really geared towards FORCING us to change our mode of thinking. AND THAT WAS EXCITING. I think law school is going to be my new self-help program. My new addiction. My new form of therapy. I know lots of theater people who use acting as a form of self-help because it forces them to get outside of themselves. Same with the law for me. I tend to get stuck in certain modes of thinking, and I form my beliefs on that, and I get comfortable with my beliefs. But tonight, the professor in Torts (harms/injuries/wrongdoings) taught us, well more like forced us to let go of our comfort thoughts, and to realize that we may not have all the answers figured out. He not only challenged our beliefs, and made us realize that there really are no answers sometimes, but that the method in which we find answers must change completely.
I tend to try to find similarities in concepts (and people). Tonight the professor tried to beat this out of me. He drilled in me and others over and over again, that there is not similarities between things such as a tort and a crime, and there are not similarities between negligence and an assault. These are the modes of thinking of the law. To find the differences is the key. I remember someone telling me once that later in life people start to realize that they can't be friends with everyone and the way to weed people out and to find out ones truest friends is to start noticing the differences in the people in my life. If i always focus on the similarities, it will never help me come to any conclusions to who i should be focusing my energy on. Focusing on the differences will help me figure out which differences i can live with in friends. Cuz of course I can live with any similarities with friends, but that doesn't always help me get a conclusion as to who i should focus on being friends with. Same with the laws. Well not being freinds with them, but coming to conclusions on what moral answers one can live with are discovered by looking at the differences. It’s VERY black and white thinking. Just the mode of thinking I have been trying to get myself far away from recently. But I guess it is the only way our society is set up to handle the law. I am ok with that…for now…but I would love to see the legal system embrace more grey area thinking in the long run. Maybe that’s what my career in the law will try to change.
Another amazing story about tonight, is that I got called on to brief the first case. It was a small case from the “dark ages” (1450). It was interesting because it involved a case where a guy was defending himself from an assault and he put his stick up to block the blow, and ended up injuring the person standing behind him The question was is this person at fault, even though it was in self defense that he injured the third party. The answer is yes…it can still be his fault.
I told the class and the professor how ironic it was that I briefed this case, as my good friend's brother was in jail for a similar harm to another. I told them that he injured a person with a knife to the neck, when he and his friend were attacked by gangbangers. He brandished a knife to scare the attackers off, and while swinging it behind him, a person got hit from it behind him, in the neck. He got 7 years in prison for this. Is that right? According to this case it is, although it is from the dark ages, and by now people have learned to get out of situations like this if they can prove it was totally an accident…or can they. That was the basic premise of class tonight.
posted by Ryan Mlynarczyk at 2:32 AM
1 Comments:
Oh my god, Ryan, you just got blog-spam. You've only had a site for less than a month and you've already been spammed! You may want to consider turning on the word verification if that keeps happening.
Ok--but my real comment--there were 2 things I wanted to say. One, in relation to your statement, "I know lots of theater people who use acting as a form of self-help because it forces them to get outside of themselves." Have you ever watched a movie called "Who Am I This Time?"? It's an older made-for-tv-movie starring Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken. It's wonderful and totally addresses that issue.
The other thing I wanted to say was that I'm surprised to see you writing that you felt pushed to the edge. I thought you were flowing right along brilliantly. For whatever it's worth, it absolutely did NOT look from the outside as if you were struggling to stay caught up. :)
Oh, wait--one other thing: The stick-guy from the case committed a tortuous offense; your brother's friend (or friend's brother?) committed a criminal offense. That's the difference the Prof. wanted you to see.
Have a great weekend. I'm so glad for you that your girl is coming back. :) See you in class on Tuesday.
Aimee
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