I was just studying. Reading contract law and trying to make sense of how courts calculate damages, how they commodify so an equitable judgment can be reached. No, nix the equitable part.

And then I went to my good friend JP’s site to see what poetry he’s put up of late. He participated in the 3:15 experiment - wake up for a month at 3:15 am, write poetry, and then go back to sleep. I’m usually a ridiculous bundle of ridiculous at that time, which would probably make things easier to write (the theory being that when I’m not a ridiculous bundle of ridiculous, then I have some equally arbitrary divisions between my creativity and my pen). But since I love my sleep, I would probably not participate in such an experiment.

Anyway, I was reading some of his great poetry. And then I went back to my contracts. And that started to read like poetry. It was the weirdest paradigm shift-lag. I suddenly realize that I’m not supposed to do that. That somehow it was wrong; I wasn’t meeting my internal normalized expectations. When I realized I’m not supposed to take contracts in the way I take poetry in, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and thought briefly - Why am I doing this?

Posted by Vivek on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 10:34 pm.