My Dad is just an old country boy raised in rural Oklahoma who worked himself through college by shoveling gravel out of train cars at night. He starved and worked his way through medical school by doing odd jobs like going to people's homes and doing insurance physicals. He graduated top of his class from the number one medical school in the country and rose to a lofty position in the Air Force working with the monkeys they originally shot up into space. In the least he understands monkeys. He always explains monkey behavior in relation to human behavior. At best he is still a country boy at heart who, upon leaving the Air Force, did not take a teaching position at a medical school, but moved to Texarkana to help ordinary, salt of the earth type of people. He has a tendency to narrow everything down to it most crude and simple explanation. He also tends to give you advice you do not want to hear at the exact time you do not want to hear it.
I understand the lineage issues of Issac Newton. I do not claim to be related in any form or fashion. If I were, this fact would probably be an embarrassment to Issac Newton. But, as a side note, Dad (or at least as he appears in his younger pictures) is a dead ringer for the guy sans the long hair, high collars and clothing of that day (which, you have got to admit, were a little Nancy). Compare the paintings of Issac in middle age and put my father in drag and, BAM, you have got a nearly exact match.
Again, this does not say a lot about me, but Dad is truly one of the brightest people I know. He is direct, and frightfully honest. I suppose that is both a blessing and a curse.
So, therefore, I was not amazed or shocked when I went to my father when I was studying Newton's Laws in high school to ask for help, only to get a lecture that was not completely on point. Needless to say, science teachers always had a problem with me. I was no Einstein, but with my last name, and the fact my father was a prominent physician in town, they expected me to be (and they were continually disappointed that I was not) better at understanding science.
I still remember catching up with Dad after he finished making rounds at the hospital, and I asked him if he could better explain Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation to me. I was having a hard time understanding the concept. I guess I was expecting to get the same kind of "every single point mass attracts every other point mass by a force heading along the line combining the two" kind of stuff. I did not understand spatial extent or acceleration due to gravity. Just forget me understanding (or really caring about) what is a vector equation. I think it was at that point I started thinking law school might be good. Maybe political science in college instead of actual science would be best.
What I got was a simple explanation that I think has also helped me more in law than it ever would in medicine or science. Dad told me Newton's Law (at least Norris Newton's Law, that being my Dad's name) can be summed up in one practical and understandable way -- "BULLSHIT RUNS DOWN HILL".
When you think about the explanation it fits the gravitational aspects that the science requires, and it also fits the typical aspect of how the body politic works.
The classic example is the Dad that comes home from a hard day at work only to find that the family dog had not been fed all day. Instead of just feeding the dog he gets upset. Instead of being greeted at the door gingerly by his loving family, he is confronted by a starving dog. So he calls in his wife, reads her the Riot Act, rants and raves on how this is not his responsibility, that she is to blame, and demands that she feed the dog NOW!
The Mom, near to tears, does not feed the dog. She hunts down her oldest daughter, gets in her face about her total lack of responsibility, and yells at her to FEED THE DOG!
The daughter, now emotionally upset, does not fed the dog. She breaks into her little bothers room. She yells at him, shakes him physically, pushes him down and instructs him to FEED THE DOG NOW OR ELSE!
The young boy goes to the dog, who is sitting near its bowl, and says, "YOU GOT ME IN TROUBLE, SO I'M NOT GOING TO FEED YOU"!
Whether in a corporate, governmental, judicial, law school or law office setting, bullshit really does run downhill. Furthermore, from the day we graduate from law school, we try to claw ourselves up so we can let the bullshit flow past us. We do not want to be the dog in this equation. We do not want to be at bedrock level because of the force of gravity.
That is also one of the reasons that working for yourself, out of your home, in the practice of law is so much more enjoyable than working in a firm in an office tower.
It allows you to defy gravity when you think about it. Sure you might still have to put up with Norris Newton Law to some extent outside of your cubby and at Court, but your home office is a GRAVITY FREE ZONE. The work comes in and you do it. You might do it in virtual collaboration with others, but you are all on an even plain. There is nowhere for the bullshit to run. It simply starts with you and ends with you. You do not have to worry every single day of your life how you are going to drag, crawl and claw yourself a little higher to avoid the brutal effects of Norris Newton's Law. It allows you to reach that perfect equilibrium in life in which you are neither at the top or at the bottom, but in perfect alignment between the planets. You have found the sweet spot where the planets have the least pull on each other, and you are free to operate in peace and harmony.
Chuck, you've got the gift. When I was low (wo)man on the totem pole in a large advertising agency in New York, I learned that lesson loud and clear. When the ad executive of the group screwed up he took to blaming the lowly and that was me. The difference was I took the pile and put the stink right back on his desk then told his boss where to find it. They admired my hutspah for defying the game but I realized right then, corporate life was not for me. (I think I always knew but had to try it out to make sure.) I have a hard time playing by rules I don't agree with...ergo my column, "An Independent Spirit."
Posted by: Susan Cartier Liebel | January 28, 2007 at 02:37 PM