Count Your Blessings

I admit that I don't often count my blessings. Part of it is fatalism: enumerating and explicating the good things in life is an invitation to have those things taken away. In part it is also because I often can be an ungrateful jerk who likes to complain about and expand upon the many hardships in life; big and little. But, Thanksgiving receives special dispensation from curses, so the first part is not a concern. And I'm working on the second part. Ergo:

 

1. My children. Every day with them is like gold.
2. My parents. They've gone on ahead, but are not gone. I am proud to be the link from #1 to #2 on this list.
3. Eugene. He likes brevity so...
4. Jo, my nieces, and the extended Li family
5. My sense of humor. Mom was right. It is really important for me in so many ways. Some guy yesterday said to me "You are aggressively smart, but you also seem like a funny guy and that makes you alright." If that could be the first impression that I make for the rest of my life, I'll take it!
6. Old friends. This trip has been like a mini-reunion, I've seen a lot of old friends. Its great to know that there are people out there who really get me, but they are spread all over the world. There are different ways to view that. I'll choose to say that they're inflitrating the collective unconsciousness, such that one day everyone will get me. I just read that over. Maybe I don't want the world to get me. "Ahhhh!!! The world's gonna get me!"
7. This photo of Cthulutu at carnivale (Thanks, Louren)
8. Being a lawyer. It was worth it. The point is not lost on me about how culture has really done a whole song and dance number on the profession on the profession in an effort to tarnish it's esteem. Nor am I blind to the proclivity of a few lawyers to live down to that dirtiness. But lawyers are like everybody else, and the system works to produce and maintain a competent group of qualified professionals.  The result of this effort is nothing less than the frontline of keeping this great experiment called the United States going. Many areas of law (I had a list here, but it got lengthy; lengthier than this parenthetical remark; and anyhow it was besides the point, so the list is gone) seem to draw out attempts to impeach the character of practioners in that area who are merely doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, which is to diffuse power. I know I've gone on at length before about Federalist No 51 "if men were angels, there'd be know need for government" and whatnot, but the crucial vitality of our system of checks and balances matters. It matters as much today as it ever did. To quote one of my greatest law professors "People around the world are literally willing to kill and die in order to have a legal system as good as ours"
9. walking. Spend some time on crutches and it'll be in your list too
10. information. I said I'd get back to this topic a few posts ago. Here it is: Although law school has totally cured me of the desire (and means) to ever be a student again, my appetite for consuming and digesting raw iinformation lives on. Yay!
11. Holidays. I needed a break and this is that break.

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Louren Li <lourenli@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:25:49 -0500
Subject: Chthulu at carnivale
To: William Li <william.li@gmail.com>

 

--
Sent from my mobile device