Public, Private, and Secret Lives

“All human beings have three lives:  public, private, and secret.”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

"We feel in one world, we think, we give names to things in another; between the two we can establish a certain correspondence, but not bridge the gap."
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, Vol. II p. 46 (Vintage Pleiade edition)

Lately I've been reflecting on these two quotes.  Almost without exception throughout the entire 3,000-page Recherche, Proust is focused intently on dissecting the secret, interior life of the person:  that is, the third element of Marquez's construct.  Here, for example, I think that Proust's "feeling world" and his "thinking world" would both exist within what Marquez calls the "secret" life.

This helps explain Proust's immense appeal to me.  Hardly anything else I've read has sought to get directly at the deepest interiors of human existence.  The "public" life, and the "private" life, do exist for Proust, of course, just like they do for everyone.  But both of those lives are merely incidental to his secret, interior life.  In his public life, he may travel to another town to visit a friend; in his private life, he may be recovering from an illness.  But neither of these things matter to him, purely in themselves.  Generally, he's only bothering to tell us about them in order to demonstrate how these exterior conditions influence his interior, secret life in his head.  For example, he'll spend pages describing how the interior of his hotel bedroom makes him feel, while making only cursory references to why he's traveling.

And isn't that true for all of us, really?  Truth be told, we mostly care about our public and private lives because of how they impact our secret lives.  It's true whether we're being altruistic or selfish, funny or serious; whether good things or terrible things are happening to us or around us.

Recommencing Florilegia

A little time has passed, but I'm excited to start posting again.

Since my last post, I have:
1) Gotten married
2) Moved from the city to the country
3) Changed jobs, and then went part-time
4) Travelled to Bora Bora, French Polynesia; Split, Hvar, & Dubrovnik, Croatia; Venice, Italy; and Banff & Salt Spring Island in Canada
5) Taken multiple trips to the UK: London, Edinburgh, Canterbury, the Orkneys, Mull, & Glasgow

I've also indulged my taste for the performing arts: dance, symphony, opera, plays, and concerts. I've read several marvelous books, plenty of entertaining ones, and a few I didn't like. I stopped subscribing to the Wall Street Journal and started the New York Times. (That was a really good change.)

Recently Finished:
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson
Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
Alone by William Manchester (Volume II of The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill) Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field by John Lewis-Stempel

Currently Reading:
The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust (Volume III of A la Recherche du Temps Perdu)
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Volume I of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
The Collected Poems of George Mackay Brown

Future Reading: accepting suggestions!

Lawyers and Their Organizations

Here is a list of the organizations to which I currently belong in my professional capacity (most requiring annual dues of varying amounts):

American Bar Association
ABA Litigation Section
ABA Young Lawyers Division
State Bar of North Carolina
North Carolina Bar Association
NCBA Litigation Section
NCBA Young Lawyers Division
28th Judicial District (Buncombe County, NC)
State Bar of California
Calif. State Bar Litigation Section
Calif. State Bar Business Law Section
Bar Association of San Francisco
BASF Litigation Section
BASF Barristers Club
Los Angeles Bar Association

This dizzying catalogue constitutes the bare minimum of professional groups to which I feel any self-respecting (and, fingers crossed, upwardly mobile) young attorney should belong. In fact, membership in several of them is required just to hang on to my NC and CA law licenses. Moreover, there are countless other similar groups who urge people like me to "Join Today!" Some are tempting . . . but most, not so much. Do professionals in other fields face a similar constant bombardment of associations and organizations clamoring for their membership?

It might not be a bad thing to belong to all these. Probably good, in fact. In their best sense, these organizations can be esteemed as a modern outgrowth of the ancient tradition of brotherhood and camaraderie in this profession. But . . . there are so many. I barely have the brain capacity to keep track of mine, let alone investigate new ones.

I wonder how best to keep these memberships meaningful, in the midst of a busy professional life.

This is Nate, my second cousin once removed (aged 4 months). He is all dressed up for a family wedding -- complete with tie and matching pocket square!

We saw this guy in the Gulf of the Farallones Visitors Center, Crissy Field, San Francisco. He looks so distressed! Whhhhhyyyyyy is life so terrible?

Keeper of the Keys

"You're not going anywhere, Mom."

Tulips in Biltmore Gardens

I love spring!

Daily Commute

This is a photo taken in Hanoi a few days ago. The pig is a stud who is being driven home after a busy day's work. He looks pretty contented, I'd say.

Strength in Tough Times

Through the dark night of the soul,
Bright flows the river of God.

-- Saint John of the Cross

Sunset on New Year's Day

From the parking lot on the California side of Heavenly.