My first love, if I remember correctly, had always been, to write.
As a child, I would use any spare exercise books I owned to pen out my candid
thoughts (because God-forbid I said them out loud) or some made-up stories, (which,
in retrospect, must have been largely influenced by the content I watched
growing up.) Being young, the themes centered on love, friends, mystery, forbidden
love, and murder (!). You know, the usual. The first panel of critiques were my
immediate family. They did not really encourage or like my stories to begin
with, but it did provide them with comedic relief, whether it was through the
less-than-perfect spelling or the outrageous plots. They didn’t tell me I
should stop though. I learned early on in life, that that was as close to ‘approval’
that I would be getting.
From an early age of eight, I was labelled as “overly
ambitious”, whether in my writing, or what I wanted out of life. It
reflected in my fictional stories. The stories would contain too many elements
or characters, or maybe the reader would have no idea where the story is
headed until the very end. The stories took the form of every genre. I didn’t
know very much about writing technique, how to gage a reader, how to construct
sentences properly. All I knew was, it brought me great joy to pen what was in
my head, onto the sheets of paper. It wasn’t even for someone to read. The satisfaction
lied in knowing I had the ability to pursue that route if I wanted.
Self-esteem:
Another thing which brought me great joy was to learn a new
word. The more pompous it sounded, the better. It made me feel like I had an
upper hand (over what, I don’t know). It made me feel ‘uppity’. Somehow
my mind drew this simplified link: Big words= Intelligence =Successful future. I’ll
admit that it made me feel good to not only know the big words but also in what
context they should be used. When I was fourteen, my English teacher made the
class write down a new word on the class notice board daily and two sentences
which exemplify its usage. It goes without saying that my favourite type of
homework were the English essays I wrote. To this date, I am grateful about it.
I’d even have a book in which I would write down some sentences which really
impressed/stood out to me.
Music:
So, what does a love for writing, words, outrageous plots
develop into? A love for music of course! Just not the ones which regularly
played on local radio. I enjoyed seeking out (because this added to the
value of it) music which had uncommon lyrics/words. These fine picks would
be on repeat. I remember, vividly, how prepubescent me adored the band Eisley.
I remember idolizing the music of Lily Allen, circa 2009. At the time, nothing
topped her. She cracked the code of blending unique sounds with even more
unique lyrics. I also liked the fact that she was not mainstream, from where I
grew up at least. Constant listening to “Best of British” after school made
me…a bit of a music snob.
Love interests:
If I sat down and thought about it, and I mean, really
thought about it, a large number of crushes I developed were on people who had a
gift with words. To me, expression with words were the direct window to
someone’s heart. Granted, there were people who used paintbrushes, a guitar, a
spray can, a camera, a skateboard, a sport, (and the list goes on…) but my
personal kryptonite were those whom used a keyboard. However, it must be remembered
that at seventeen, Instagram was not so
much a thing yet (?) and it was not like you could go up to people and ask to
look into their journals to see what their mind was really about, so blogging
was the closest source to obtain that understanding. What irked them. What
fascinated them. How they described the most mundane happenings in their day.
And man, when I came across that, I dissolved into it like fine salt.
I was thirteen when I came across an individual whom was so
unabashedly themselves (and I will refrain from using pronouns here because I
don’t know what they identify as) and wrote like it was their life’s calling.
It didn’t matter to me what that person was like in real life, how they treated
those around me, or what their principles were. I was so charmed by the way
this person had a distinctive, self-made style, or flair, and it was unlike anything
I had seen before. This brief (but big) chapter in my life would end with
fourteen-year-old me writing/typing some twenty something paged narrative about
how much this person meant to me, followed by utter regret about that for some many
years to come. It was only much belatedly after that when I realized, it was
not “love” ( to be fair, what would I have known about love?) but rather, this
person had traits I wished I could have embodied, but was too scared to
actually do so. It was admiration. In
hindsight, I truly envy the courage it must have taken teenage me to even
conjure up their heart and soul in written form, pass it to that person, and leave
the rest to the universe. That’s blind faith. (Most of that courage has faded
away).
I was also around thirteen / fourteen when I came across another
individual who resembled the typical teenage heartthrob, who knew how to work a
side smile, preferred to wear their hair gelled (and at the same time with a
fringe long enough to pull off a hair flip), and recorded Youtube covers of whatever
acoustic hits teen boys listen to. This was the kind of person whom was
generally surrounded by a large group of friends, oozing in sheer confidence
and popularity. However, all of that was
pale in comparison to the way this person wrote. That was the defining
trait for me which roped my interest in. It was very candid, straight to the
point, sprinkled with a hint of appropriately-timed humor. Unfortunately, for
both these examples of love interest that teen me would have pined for, I would
not have been the most glamorous choice of person to get to know or be with. I
don’t even say this in a bitter way, I mean, I had to put in so much work into
myself mentally, physically and emotionally before I could perceive myself as
someone to date.
Career:
It turned out that years of my consistent love for words and writing would have
led to no better conclusion than to study to become a lawyer (!) Or, as actual lawyers would say, read law. I could not see myself as a writer,
because, I wasn’t born with a financial safety net. (Let’s be real, I had to find a
compromise between what I was good at, and what could make me a decent income).
What I love about this profession is that you’re consuming so much of important information about (1) How the legal structures and systems we have today came about (2) Why they are needed, (3) What are the laws or systems in place, and (4) What are the best ways to narrate your client’s grievances or how to present the best defences in place to defeat a claim against someone. If only all it took to be a lawyer was eloquence and writing skills. But it isn’t enough. It’s an ultimate test of mental strength, it can be very humbling, and maybe every few years or so, there is a different analogy you’d use to simplify what you’d do for a living. So I will go with what’s most recent.
When I started out, during chambering, I would have simplified litigation as a form of ‘story-telling’ to the Judge with persuasive arguments to swing him in your favour.
Then, not too long ago, I looked at lawyering as a profession of regimented rules. Structure. A game of organisation. A game, where what is at stake are liberties, monies, payment of debts, declaration of a status, perhaps. Manage your knowledge. Manage your time. Present the best case within the confines of the rules. However, that lens/angle seems a little too…one-dimensional. Truth be told, the law is a little too wide and vague to be summarised. There’s private law (Between individuals) and then there is public law (interests of the state, constitutional matters, etc) . I learned, in the course of my studies that I have a soft spot for the latter. However, I decided that I needed to get experience in the former first, to increase my employability.
In recent times, (and I mean at the point of writing this
entry) I found a new lens to litigation. In a lot of ways, being a litigation lawyer is like playing
a calculated and strategised game of chess. The knowledge which a person acquires in the
span of their education and their early years in practice are like pawns. Expending
time, effort and study into bettering your pawns earn you the bigger powerful pieces,
like a Castle, maybe a Knight, or a Bishop. The interlocutory applications you
file are the moves you’re making.
Where the problem lies
At some point, because you want to perfect the game, it can start to feel like your entire life is defined by your ability to play this game of chess well. It gets difficult to remember that this game of chess is not your entire identity. You actually have the ability to say “I don’t think I want to play this game for a while, I would like to take a break, and I would like to try other games, perhaps one which does not require as much from me perpetually” . It can get to a point that you feel like if you left that game, you’d die. You had already spent too much time perfecting your winning chances. The sad reality is that it’s a game which takes your whole life to perfect. In fact, that’s why it’s called “practicing law”. And even then, at the point when you know all the rules to the game, a new manual to play it is released. (I am talking about a change of law!) So I guess, It is not as simple as winning and losing. In fact, it is far more complex that that.
Resolution
So I guess the question becomes, what is even the point of writing any of these down? And the simple answer is this. When we lose sight of what is the core of us, life does not become worth living. There may be countless 'factory-manufactured-settings-people' , of which many are forced into conformance in order to earn a living. My take is this. At our dying days, we might come to find that our whole life and all its big decisions are structured around the gift we have been blessed with, spent our entire life developing and perfecting, only because it brought joy. So, when you find that joy is no longer in the equation, it is time to take an aerial view of things and see if this is what we want to continue pursuing.
What I want to say irl, .and really wish were real:
Nothing is worth letting your core die. The essence of who you are is one of its kind, it is priceless, and should in no circumstance be sacrificed for temporary conformance with a pre-determined and rigged system of bureaucracy and capitalism which pre-dates our existence.
What I actually have to say:
If only it were that easy though. Bills need to get paid.