Imagine this:
Reading on Imam Shafi’i at the back of a speeding car, legs propped up on the backseats. In front sit two girls, with a long-hijabed girl at the wheel, driving haphazardly with Party Like a Rock Star playing on the radio, blaring at maximum volume.
Unreal. It makes me shake my head in disbelieving amazement.
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Have you ever heard of the dictionary joke?
There’s this man whose going through the dictionary, trying to find the meaning of ‘dictionary’.
He finds it, and the definition reads: ‘It’s what you’re holding, stupid.’
So he then flips through again to find the meaning of ’stupid.’
The definition reads: ‘Is that you again?’
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It’s ironic that this joke makes me think of studying law, in the sense that learning it is forever flipping through that dictionary.
You take a concept, you thrash out all its areas of study, and eventually you’ll find that you’re going to have to understand the meaning behind the meaning behind the meaning of what you need to grasp.
Example: Reviewing cases. Take any one case, especially the old English ones dating back to the early 1900’s, and have a go at it. 3 minutes into the case and I wouldn’t have a clue about what I’m reading because it either makes little sense in a language more complicatedly fashioned than pre-Raphaelite poets, or because it’s discussing a concept behind the main concept which needs to be explained first. And so on it goes.
In the end, you’re left studying the explanation of the concept that comes from the idea of a particular subheading of a subtopic of a topic of a subject.
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I made a list the other day to see how my academics are so far this semester. It looked something like this:
Subjects I Understand * Subjects Not Making Much/Any Sense
Basic Counseling Skills 1 * Alternative Dispute Resolution
* Land Law II
* Equity and Law of Trusts I
* Company Law I
* Usul Fiqh I
* Evidence/Procedure in Syariah Courts I
Evidently, things don’t look too good.
What is success?
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty,
to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
-popularly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Oh, if only it were that simple.
What was that saying?
“Life is simple. It is humans that complicate it.”
Enough said here.
