Communication, or Why This Is Hard To Do

Hello Media Consumers, welcome to another exceedingly interesting blog post. It will become the highlight of your day, I'm sure.

What have I been up to, you might ask? My much-hyped (mostly by me - see post before last) moot court competition doesn't start until October, so I've seemingly had quite a bit of time on my hands recently. I've applied for many a job, crafted many an ingratiating cold email to unsuspecting law firms, feasted upon numerous delicious organic cheese items appearing in my fridge, and of course, spent a considerable amount of time pondering how many games it will take the Twins to win the World Series

As a related aside, I've been quite agog at Mr. Jim Thome's recent spat of Herculean home runs. If I can't hit a baseball 700 feet when I'm 40, here's to hoping I can do something else with similar aplomb.

But of course, consistent with my duties, I've spent a few hours here and there being an Associate Editor on the eminent Hamline Law Review. This consists of me reading rough drafts of budding law review articles, making more than a few marks with a colored pen, and basically trying to impart nuggets of literary/legal wisdom on other future lawyers. And as future lawyers are wont to do, we're always right.

Anyways, the experience has reminded me of, for how fundamental it is, effective communication is quite a difficult task to master. You know, I tend to fancy myself a competent writer, and I suppose it's frustrating when others weren't blessed with that capacity. It's not an offense, it's not anything, but it does make you realize that the distillation of ideas to paper, or ideas to a computer, as it were, is a difficult thing. People are verbose and labyrinthine in their reasoning, when the same result could be exposed by fewer words and a Hemingway touch. These are the growing pains of academia though, and I suppose that's why there are folks like me to say, "I just don't understand this."

Of course, thus the title of this blog - only fools think they understand everything. I tend to find this out in more dramatic ways than most, but I suppose that's not necessarily a bad thing. After all, life is dramatic. I believe my friend Bill stated this best when he said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players . . . ." I think maybe it's just frustrating, or difficult to comprehend when you are acting in say, a comedy, and another person is doing their best tragedy. Or maybe a mystery combined with a musical. Whatever, you get the point.

Moral of the blog, it's difficult for anyone to write a law review article, it's difficult to write anything. It's difficult to convey what you want to say to other people without sounding insensitive, condescending, or foolish. It's hard to tell folks how you feel. Even worse, it's hard to apologize, especially if you don't think you need to, or understand what is going on. In the end, it's amazing the world continues on in a functional manner, what with all the yelling and mucking about.

Maybe this is yet another reason why baseball is among the most perfect of things. After all, communication is easy. To win a game, you don't need to argue the finer points of the CISG, you don't need to defend yourself against hostile questions or verbal spars. All one must do, is launch a small white sphere into orbit, a majestic arc that by its very nature, instantly tells all that needs to be known.



Enough blather. The Twins, symbolic of all that is righteous in the world, are victorious again. I've had my daily quota of coffee, and there's no school until 4 tomorrow. It is yet another gorgeous Minnesota day; and of course, a gorgeous day in Minnesota is the most gorgeous of all. My bike tires are full of air, the gleaming towers of Minneapolis are nearby, and sky-blue describes not only the waters, but the sky too.

Away!