| Prologue: After thinking about how to edit my first paper, I finally conceded that the paper contained one fundamental flaw (as well as many more superficial flaws, of course). Specifically, I misinterpreted the scope of Holmes' "bad man," applying it to practitioners when Holmes himself limited it to "those who want to learn the law and nothing else." Because my whole essay was constructed around the hypothetical figure of the practitioner qua bad man, I believe it would be a futile mental exercise to try to salvage this essay.
What I do plan to salvage with this "re-write," however, is the larger idea that I was trying to penetrate—that is, the question of what tools the creative practitioner can use in order to be successful in the face of adversity. Over the course of the semester, I picked up on two such tools: (1) foreseeing future legal trends and becoming an expert on their subject matter, and (2) mastering oneself and one's interpersonal relations by understanding that humans have "multiple personalities." Because I feel as though (1) was discussed more in-depth than (2) in class and on the wiki, I plan to investigate (2) more fully here. |