The Real Philip Deal

[jacob]

Ha! Remember the "So you want to be a ....". It was a thing some years ago.

[zbigi]

Q: "What about international law"
A: "No money; also, no such thing exists."

Hah, I remember reading a book from an hobbyist art merchant whose dayjob was being a law professor at an university in Paris. He produced some 600 pages monograph on international law, with the main conclusion that it's a joke. Needless to say, he wasn't very popular at the law department.

[blink2ce]

To the OP Phillip -- Have you considered doing sales? You can make money right away, no extra schooling required. And if you are successful at it, you can make a lot of money. It is way more flexible than law. You can sell stuff in any state, no need to pass another bar exam. Sales is also interesting because it is used in every industry. You could start by selling beer to bars, but if that becomes boring you could sell giant circuit breakers to utility companies. Most of the skills are the same. But industry experience does help, especially when selling into a technical industry (which also tends to make more money).

If I ever get bored of being an electrical engineer, I will consider joining the sales team at an industrial supplier of power equipment.

[suomalainen]

For laughs please enjoy this song titled "Don't Be a Lawyer". Pretty much sums up Hristo and Suo's feedback. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs-UEqJ85KE

hahahahahahaha.

[philipreal]

yeeeeeOWCH! I broke my arm this morning while riding my bike (radial head fracture). This means I wont be in the concerts this weekend, to say the least . I'd enjoy some video and/or book recommendations. I started reading Kegan the evolving self and it's been interesting so far. Typing with one hand (that also has a somewhat hurt wrist) kinda sucks.

[Henry]

yeeeeeOWCH! I broke my arm this morning while riding my bike (radial head fracture).

You should call a lawyer.

[AxelHeyst]

Oof! Sorry to hear that Philip. Hope that heals up fast.

Books:
Existential Kink, Carolyn Eliot (fun and quick read, but also I found it *very* insightful).
How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, Harry Browne, easy to find free pdf. He's dead so no ethical issues stealing the book.
Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke
The Four Desires, Rod Stryker ('how to figure out/create your purpose in life' from a yogic lens. Moderate woo, not too bad.
The Miles Vorkosigan saga (science fiction, Miles is the character that George RR Martin ripped off to create Tyrion Lanister for the Game of Thrones. You'll have to google which book to start with.)
Captain Blood, Rafael Sabatini
How to Take Smart Notes, Ahrens
Musashi, Eiji Yoshikawa
The Pathless Path, Paul Millerd
The Glass Bead Game, Herman Hesse
Atomic Habits, James Clear
All I Want to Know Is Where I'm Going to Die So I'll Never Go There, Peter Bevelin (compilation of Buffet/Munger quotes/conversations stitched together).

[Hristo Botev]

Sorry to hear about the bike accident. I had my own accident a few years ago, after having been a bike commuter for a few years (viewtopic.php?p=173452#p173452 --> you can ignore what I said about being in a "noble profession"), which was enough for me to finally realize (a realization DW reinforced) how anyone attempting to "share the road" with cars in this country has a death wish.

As for book recommendations, sounds like this might be a good time to start reading the Great Books:

• Iliad (Fagle's translation)

• Odyssey (Fagle's translation)

• Anything by Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, or Aristophanes

• Any of Plato's dialogues

• Herodotus's History

• Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War

• Any of Plutarch's "Lives"

• Ethics or Politics by Aristotle

You could also just jump straight to Thomas Aquinas, perhaps with his Summa Contra Gentiles

I'd always recommend the Catechism of the Catholic Church, of course

Some more contemporary reads: anything by Walker Percy; Wendell Berry's essays and fiction; I love Harry Crews, but he's not for everyone; Paul Kingsnorth's Buckmaster Trilogy is a personal favorite of mine; CS Lewis's space trilogy is also great, as are any of his non-fiction essays/works.

I also try and read through Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov once every few years.

As for movie recommendations, a few that come to mind are Rear Window, Who Shot Liberty Valance (obviously I like Jimmy Stewart), Clue, and Dead Snow (who doesn't love a nazi zombie movie).

[Biscuits and Gravy]

I also try and read through Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov once every few years.

Hristo, is there no end to your self-torment?

@Phil I’d recommend reading this forum thoroughly. You seem like you want to be an active member, and that’s great, but there is so much to catch up on here. I have been reading the forum for close to a decade and I am still far behind others and regularly stumble across buried gems of wisdom. If you read enough journals, you can also develop the ability to intuit another forumite’s development. It can be really entertaining. And fwiw, I recently left the legal profession (I worked for a judge) and I would also not recommend it.

[Hristo Botev]

And fwiw, I recently left the legal profession (I worked for a judge) and I would also not recommend it.

One more thing to add to the legal talk is that my sister went to law school wanting to do the "international law" thing--she even did the Hague internship thing, got to do something with the Milosevic case, IIRC. She's very much someone who went into law wanting to "make a difference"; and she probably has--not in "international law," of course, because such a thing doesn't really exist (as she learned the hard way). But she was a domestic violence prosecutor for a number of years before switching sides, and she is now a public defender and has been for over a decade, with quite a few attorneys under her supervision. And depending how things shake out politically I wouldn't be surprised at all if she ends up a judge; something she would be great at. But, it's an absolute grind--a different kind of grind than the BigLaw thing, but a grind nonetheless. The hours may be a bit better, but having humanity and reality just smack you in the face day in and day out; I certainly don't have it in me. (The grind in BigLaw is more of the sort of realizing that you are pouring your life blood out to paper up some private equity deal, or some such thing that you know is not adding any value at all to the world--quite the opposite.) So, anyway, my sister's a good example of someone who went into law for the same reasons you mention, she managed to NOT incur law school debt, and she has made a career of serving the public and of the downtrodden in an honest and non corrupt way, despite there being TONS OF CORRUPTION all around her. It's a tough way to make a living.

[suomalainen]

(The grind in BigLaw is more of the sort of realizing that you are pouring your life blood out to paper up some private equity deal, or some such thing that you know is not adding any value at all to the world--quite the opposite.)

Hey now, stones and glass houses and all. We capital allocators serve an important function in society, sorta like editors of newspapers. Get rid of us, and what do you have left? Gofundme?

I have a reading list somewhere in my journal, but dunno if any would be of any interest. I haven't read anything substantive in years.

[Hristo Botev]

Hey now, stones and glass houses and all. We capital allocators serve an important function in society, sorta like editors of newspapers. Get rid of us, and what do you have left? Gofundme?

The financialization of everything down to even selling hamburgers or smoothies makes me physically ill; especially because I play a role in and profit from (in my small billable hour way) that financialization. It’s just so gross. Aquinas and Aristotle were right about usury; and it pains me that the Catholic Church has softened its position on it in the modern era.

[chenda]

It’s just so gross. Aquinas and Aristotle were right about usury; and it pains me that the Catholic Church has softened its position on it in the modern era.

100% agree usury is an abomination. Islamic banking provides us with a workable alternative (although even they have sometimes been too ready to fudge the definition of interest for commercial gain)

[Henry]

I'd enjoy some video and/or book recommendations.

Winning Your Personal Injury Claim by Evan K. Aidman

[Biscuits and Gravy]

TONS OF CORRUPTION

Do you mean corruption in the criminal justice system? If so, let me say that, at least in the jurisdiction in which I worked, I was left with the impression that judges, public defenders, and prosecutors were all of strong moral fiber and had sacrificed much in order to serve the public. Your comment prickled me a bit. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the one we have and, considering history and alternatives, we must protect it.

To clarify, my advice to not become an attorney was based on a cost-benefit analysis (debt vs. earning potential and the arduous path to get to biglaw).

Sorry to keep filling your journal with this, Phil.

[Hristo Botev]

Do you mean corruption in the criminal justice system?

I have nothing but admirable things to say about the federal judges I personally have worked for as a clerk and an intern. The shenanigans in the big city state courts relating to who becomes a judge and how, the inner workings of the DA offices, how prosecutorial discretion is and is not utilized in reality, it’s shady as hell in my experience. That’s not to say that, on the whole it’s mostly on the level and that most people are more like my sister and less like the stereotypical person who barely passed the bar exam but failed upwards at the DA’s office thanks to who someone knows and/or thanks to someone wanting someone they can control in a position of power. But, it doesn’t take much of the latter to leave a pretty unavoidable stench.

[suomalainen]

Humans gonna human.

[Jean]

I thing interest are great. We should just make debt non enforcable beyond the collateral. Only consequence would be a possibility to communicate publicly that someone didn't pay its debt.
Bankrupcy should be much easier.

[candide]

I misread what you wrote.

I also try and read through Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov once every few years.

I thought you were saying you try to pick up the book every few years, but don't finish it.

I was about to get on my book buddy from the Moby Dick Book Club, as Brothers K is a much more readable than the great middle bulk of Moby Dick.

I think I'd recommend almost everyone give Brothers K a try, provided they are not immediately thrown off by the length. Whereas many other big bricks (Infinite Jest, Moby Dick) or very literary works (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) I would only recommend to people of certain bents of mind, and certain intellectual hungers.

And pre-modern books in the old Cannon require still other bents of mind and other intellectual hungers almost as rare. Thoreau has it right:

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

What are you people seeing in Brothers Karamazov that I’m not? Other than The Idiot, I’ve read all of Dostoevsky (because I thought it would make me look smart and impress all of the dudes, but it did not) and Brothers is by far my least favorite. It’s his best snapshot of the Russian world at that time, with its eye roll-inducing aristocracy, I’ll give it that, but there are better Dostoevsky books, and better books period. The Possessed was my favorite. I think about Kirillov nearly every day. The more modern day books I read however the less I’m inclined to put old books on a pedestal and they become simply sources of historical knowledge and less real food for thought.