A COSMOPOLITAN LAWYER: JUST SOME READINGS I HAVE ENJOYED LATELY

First, this blog replaces my previous blog, thecosmoplitanlawyerblogspot.com . Second, unlike that earlier blog, the present one is primarily meant as a record of my readings. It is not meant to suggest that others will be or should be interested in what I read. And third, in a sense, it is a public diary of one who is an alien in his own American culture. A person who feels at home just about anywhere, except in his birthplace . . . America.

Friday, April 6, 2012

"PRACTICE IDEAL VERSIONS OF THE SELF"

John Donatich, The Variations: A Novel (New York: Henry Holt, 2012) ("The doing of a thing over and over until its power sneaks up on you and you realize it has changed you made you what you wanted to be. To be deliberate is to trick fate, to be original even if deviating just perceptibly from the origin, to be judged by what you've done; to practice until it is perfect." "You are only ever as good as you are. Practice ideal versions of the self; every variation against the ideal. Commit to an identity until it begins to restrict. Then commit to another. If you cannot live these selves simultaneously, live among them. The varieties do not fragment but overlap; the variations anticipate and made each other, lead into each other, They are contingent on each other. Respond. Love." Id. at 268.).