Annoyance at not being able to develop intellectually at all?

LOL. A friend mentioned that and it sounded too familiar. I hate the “at all” part. It really stings! I walk around the law school killing time right before classes reading Vergil or looking at a real book, and people ask me if I’m reading that for “fun.” Or, worse yet, being caught in a bar on Friday night curled up with some great book and a beer and told that I need to “loosen up.” :-( I talk to my friends in history or English or classics and I turn a little green from envy. I'm in my fifth semester of law school, and it's the second one that I'm actually enjoying. Sometimes, I wish I could just push the rewind button in life and erase the whole affair. Nearly walked away from it twice before—am really only finishing because, with funding for this year, nothing's ventured beyond my time. But enough complaining!

For me, the experience has been positive inasmuch as it has allowed me to understand how liberal socialist atheists think, and generally how contemporary society is trying to enforce its value-choices. That's an internal perspective that I didn't acquire at my little conservative Mecca of a college. The experience has also helped me to become a more versatile apologist, in the sense of learning how to argue ruthlessly for things one doesn't "believe in" at all.

What do I want to do with it? Well, get on with the "real project" as soon as possible. For me, this means extending and refining the sort of theologically-driven social critique articulated by people like Machen, Schaeffer, and (most of all) Rushdoony in an historically-conscious, legally-sophisticate, and literarily-allusive mode. In other words, work on rewriting De Civ. Dei for an American audience, addressing the history and destiny of the American experiment in terms, not of redemptive history b.c., but of ecclesiastical history a.d. Hopefully involves heavy study of the epic tradition of imaginative, civilization-defining literature, and of medieval and early modern political philosophy.

At this point, I don't especially want to practice at all. Feel vaguely like a seminary student who's lost his faith in "god" (i.e., the people or their legislatures). Practically, I guess I'd like to practice in an anti-regulatory posture serving small businesses and farmers. Sortalike what the Institute for Justice does. But I'm still working on the whole "what next" question. One option is clearly to enter a terminal program in political philosophy or history of ideas and practice locally while in that program. A career in service abroad is another option.

Does that sound terribly jaded? Perhaps it explains some of dark allegories. LOL.