The freedom of not working :
It's 2:00 in the afternoon here in Miami. I am sitting in the Barnes & Noble cafe enjoying a cup of real coffee (I.E.: not Cuban coffee). It is a beautiful and sunny day, as it always is this time of year just before summer, and I had no idea what day this is.
Well, that's not entirely true. I thought it was Saturday. It isn't, of course; it's Friday today.
Well, how would I know? I don't even need to get out of bed in the morning if I don't feel like it. My days are filled with languor and coffee, studying for the LSAT, and reflection on the events of the last year.
I still don't know if I want to get a job or not. I am almost come to grips with the idea of a year-long reinvention of the self. I'll probably have to do something just to keep myself from going crazy, but the listlessness I feel right now isn't exactly unpleasant.
In so many ways I am so much more fortunate to have said goodbye to my last career than if I would have tried to hang on to it. With finance goes the economy; therefore, since the economy is garbage any job in finance, and certainly one paid on commission, is garbage. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.
I got four books today:
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William Shirer, originally published in 1960. This is one of the authoritative accounts from a historical perspective. It looks to be quite exhaustive.
Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler's Most Brilliant General by Erich von Manstein (well...not the most brilliant in my opinion; but one of the best).
Life and Death in the Third Reich by Peter Fritzche, which is a recently published work that describes the social and national environment in Germany 1933 through the war years. I am particularly interested in this book because anti-Semitism is discussed at length, and it is something that I don't quite understand (as in how can a group of people become the object of such treatment and vilification).
The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism by Anthony Read, which tackles another interwar subject that I am obsessed with: the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviets.
If I had my way, I could spend the rest of my life studying history, and reading and writing about it. I know it doesn't sound very intersting, but I think that this is largely because of the way history is taught. I really have no interest in becoming a history professor, because I really don't think there is a future in it for me that would allow me to be successful. Writing, however, is something I have always wanted to do.
And now the narrative rambles.
Writing has always been the career that I wanted more than anything else, but the more I consider it, the more I think that I wouldn't be any good at it. I don't know whether I would want to write fiction or fact. I don't know if I write fiction whether I would write fantasy or the Great American Novel. If I write non-fiction, I don't know that my work could ever be thorough enough to be accepted by academia.
In short, The closer I get to doing what I want, the farther I am away. It reminds me of the guy that said "the wise man only knows that he knows little" or something like that. I love philosophy, but I kind of think that memorizing the names that go along with it is just as boring as learning history without the passion for it.
I do feel though that the art of the word - in some way or another - is where my future is. I just have to find it. I read something interesting in my LSAT studies yesterday. My course book says that lawyers are notoriously bad writers. I find this unacceptable and I promise that I will at least be a lawyer that doesn't sound like an idiot whan he writes.
If anybody wants to know any really good history books relating to any subject or time period since revolutionary France, let me know, and I can point you in the right direction.
It's 2:00 in the afternoon here in Miami. I am sitting in the Barnes & Noble cafe enjoying a cup of real coffee (I.E.: not Cuban coffee). It is a beautiful and sunny day, as it always is this time of year just before summer, and I had no idea what day this is.
Well, that's not entirely true. I thought it was Saturday. It isn't, of course; it's Friday today.
Well, how would I know? I don't even need to get out of bed in the morning if I don't feel like it. My days are filled with languor and coffee, studying for the LSAT, and reflection on the events of the last year.
I still don't know if I want to get a job or not. I am almost come to grips with the idea of a year-long reinvention of the self. I'll probably have to do something just to keep myself from going crazy, but the listlessness I feel right now isn't exactly unpleasant.
In so many ways I am so much more fortunate to have said goodbye to my last career than if I would have tried to hang on to it. With finance goes the economy; therefore, since the economy is garbage any job in finance, and certainly one paid on commission, is garbage. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.
I got four books today:
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany by William Shirer, originally published in 1960. This is one of the authoritative accounts from a historical perspective. It looks to be quite exhaustive.
Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler's Most Brilliant General by Erich von Manstein (well...not the most brilliant in my opinion; but one of the best).
Life and Death in the Third Reich by Peter Fritzche, which is a recently published work that describes the social and national environment in Germany 1933 through the war years. I am particularly interested in this book because anti-Semitism is discussed at length, and it is something that I don't quite understand (as in how can a group of people become the object of such treatment and vilification).
The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism by Anthony Read, which tackles another interwar subject that I am obsessed with: the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviets.
If I had my way, I could spend the rest of my life studying history, and reading and writing about it. I know it doesn't sound very intersting, but I think that this is largely because of the way history is taught. I really have no interest in becoming a history professor, because I really don't think there is a future in it for me that would allow me to be successful. Writing, however, is something I have always wanted to do.
And now the narrative rambles.
Writing has always been the career that I wanted more than anything else, but the more I consider it, the more I think that I wouldn't be any good at it. I don't know whether I would want to write fiction or fact. I don't know if I write fiction whether I would write fantasy or the Great American Novel. If I write non-fiction, I don't know that my work could ever be thorough enough to be accepted by academia.
In short, The closer I get to doing what I want, the farther I am away. It reminds me of the guy that said "the wise man only knows that he knows little" or something like that. I love philosophy, but I kind of think that memorizing the names that go along with it is just as boring as learning history without the passion for it.
I do feel though that the art of the word - in some way or another - is where my future is. I just have to find it. I read something interesting in my LSAT studies yesterday. My course book says that lawyers are notoriously bad writers. I find this unacceptable and I promise that I will at least be a lawyer that doesn't sound like an idiot whan he writes.
If anybody wants to know any really good history books relating to any subject or time period since revolutionary France, let me know, and I can point you in the right direction.
lillithvain:
Um coffee. I'm jealous I want some coffee too!