Childishly Drawn, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

This evening I sat down and "toted up" my Mandatory Continuing Legal Education hours, to ascertain what requirements I needed to complete to ensure I stayed in good shape with the Califonria requirements. I found that I lacked the required hour in Elimination of Bias in the Legal Profession. I found an on-line seminar on precisely this topic, whose expiration date was tonight. I plunked down my twenty five dollars, and began to listen to audio, view a power point, and read materials. The presentation, by a litigator who now teaches at the Mercer law school in Georgia, was quite good. Sometimes this topic lends itself to a plethora of opinion disguised as fact and
of the picayune elevated over the substance. The seminar instead focused on the substance of the very real continuing issues of ethnic and racial inequity in the legal profession,and ways to address that concern.

One lawyer-attendee posted on a message board the point of view that the only remedy was to impose heavy fines unless large law firms met pre-ordained percentage quotas. I found this solution not to my liking. I support anti-discrimination laws, though I want them applied with a bit more nuance than that suggested by the poster.

This led me,overall, to an inner thought about non-governmental ways to encourage greater diversity in professional life, and in the culture generally. I am a believer in regulated markets, so my concern was not to find some Milton Friedman nirvana. My concern instead was much more small scale--what can I do? How can I help?

I feel this way about a lot of issues. How can I help with the problem that the City of Dallas had to destroy 27,000 dogs for want of owners last year? How can I help with the inequity in educational opportunities? How can I help get the word out that existing laws already on the books provide help with a number of consumer issues, ranging from stopping collection agents from making harassing calls to getting a credit report cleared of an inaccurate entry?

How can we create a culture in which the local community funds local people creating art and music and move from this idea that we are all merely media consumers of a "national" media?

I've been reading Erin Grewell's book about bringing hope to school kids in a rough neighborhood of Long Beach, and thinking to myself that a kind of drive to do good, coupled with effective naivete', can bring a child-like virtue of succeeding because one does not know one is supposed to fail.

Arriving home late after a Firehouse roast beef sandwich intermezzo spent reading about Mahler, I sat down with the freeware program "Drawing for Children" and played childishly with the shapes and backgrounds.

But my mind was alive to "What then must we do?"

Flowers in a garden, originally uploaded by gurdonark.

I never have had a taste for cigarettes, alcohol, controlled substances or latte. I used to have quite a taste for chocolate, but I tempered my intake in light of its fat content. I am not particularly prone to the endorphin adrenaline rush of adventure. Like most people, my life involves a great deal more Walter Mitty than Amelia Earheart.

I am firmly in the camp of people who find immense comfort in a good book, a flowering garden, and a simple train ride.
I do not hunt for the local deer and doves, but enjoy seeing doves and house sparrows at the feeder in our backyard. I like a good walk on an easy trail. I am as transported by the sight of a 3,500 foot high mountain as if I had climbed a 10,000 foot high mountain. For that mattter, I'm transported by the rolling vistas of spreading prairie.

People speak of lost arts, and re-discovering ways to do things once common and now rare. I'm not an expert at any of those. Yet I find that a key lost art is the lost art of the ability to self-entertain: to find contentment in one's own company. I don't mean to "be an island", because the quote about how "no man is an island" is so pithy that it might as well be treated as true. I mean instead the ability for one to do or not do something, and still find life immensely entertaining.

There are a number of small-town virtues perhaps best left to small-town living. One small-town virtue, though, deserves export. In a small town, it is understood that in some ways "there is nothing to do". One must therefore learn to self-entertain. I am always amused by the perpetual truth of the young that "there is nothing to do in this town", ever since I heard one young fellow say this to another young fellow in the midst of a crowded mall in Los Angeles. in small towns, though, when there is indeed a smaller array of things to do, people find great comfort in doing things and enjoying them. The library is not taken for granted, but a lifeline. Appreciating nature and one's garden is another lifeline. Crafting is not a frivolous pursuit, but a necessity. Community activities and even sports are not a local affectation, but a local necessity.

I see it all as the abilty to self-entertain. If I could give people a gift, I think I'd give the gift to find contentment within oneself. It's as good as chocolate, and less fattening.