The Power of Words

So, I realized something important about myself this evening as I was endeavoring to make more headway on the previously mentioned paper...I get caught up in the power of words.

Words pick me up, grab hold of me, cause excitement or awe to rise up inside of me, capture my attention, and make my thoughts fly into a thousand directions.

I think that's one of the reasons why I love reading...and yet, sometimes procrastinate on diving into a book because it always brings something new into my head, exhausting me, exhilariting me, throwing me for new loops.

On a research note, I quickly get caught up in the ideas that powerful writing presents or the power of what I'm reading about. These days as I'm reading pages on Constitutional history, the powers of the Supreme Court, Congress and the President, I get caught up in the powerful history that is captured on the page. I get overwhelmed by how much I don't know, and how much better some other author's words are for conveying an idea that I just learned about. I latch onto word order or the way in which someone describes something and it takes me awhile to step back and go "oh."

Most of the time that comes when I'm finally forced to write it out myself. That's why deadlines are so very, very important in my life.

So...what is occupying my mind so late this evening? Thoughts on American law, of course!
(This may be a bad sign in that I might have to consider law school at some point...ergh.)

"The Constitution of the United Statesis beguilingly - and misleadingly - short, tempting some poele to suppose that, unlike sacred texts, it can be read and understood by anyone...The Constitution is [instead] elusive, ambiguous, murky, sometimes quite opaque."

In deciding what the Constitution means, we must first grapple with the question, Whose meaning are we seeking?" --The Evolving Constitution, Jethro K. Lieberman

Thus surmising the constitutional conflict that is the basis for so much of American politics. Who has the power? And why do they? And should they? What happens if they go to far? Can they be stopped? Should they be stopped? And what happens if the person in the wrong believes something different?

There's something beautiful about laws that grapple with those questions. There's something frustrating about trying to put into succinct paragraphs how things like Constitutional separations of power are so imperative to understanding how US foreign policy works, when I don't really understand all of the implications...While still realizing that this is not the point of my paper anyway! Grrrargh.

These are the days when I think I would be a lot better off just finding a job after graduation and keeping my big scale ideas to relaxed evening reading for the rest of my life, therefore never having to grapple with them enough to put my own ideas on paper.

Can I just repeat the sound, GRRRARGH!?!