Fail faster: Looking back on 10 years of institutional education
Also on the menu: Things I saw this month and liked and promises for the future
Tomorrow, on Monday, the 24th of February 2025, will be the last oral examination of my legal education. A rocky 10 year trail finally comes to an end. After that, I am considered a fully qualified lawyer in Germany and am able to represent you in court. And it sounds like I’m proud, and I am, because I finished something incredibly difficult, but if someone would ask me if I would do it again, I’d say: hell. fucking. no.
I.
The first answer I remember giving on the question, “Why did you choose law?” was that I thought it is a superpower to know how to navigate the bureaucracy in Germany. In my 18-year-old mind, Germany represented order on the verge of docility, so my will to power manifested itself in the promised control of knowing the law.
At least, this was my interpretation of things at that time. Only now I realize that it probably had more to do with the fact that my mom spent years carrying me from Ausländerbehörde to Ausländerbehörde during our early years here and how much pain it must made her feel.
Either way, studying law promised me freedom, status and impact.
Freedom was the first trap. The curriculum was mostly composed of self-study which made it easy to do nothing for months and then scramble to do everything in a couple of weeks. In my experience, self-study and the freedom of university doesn’t pair well with people fresh out of school, especially those used to someone constantly looking over their shoulder. But my parents were proud, and I was finally left to do whatever I want—after all, their son was going to become a lawyer!
Which leads us to the second trap: status. People hear “law” and are impressed with it. They don’t offer advice on how to live life the right way because they assume you’ve obviously got your shit together. People automatically think you’re some kind of disciplined genius who will bail them out one day.
“Like Suits, yeah?”
Yes, exactly, just like Suits. Only the German version of it.
But the real status only dawned on me during my traineeship in Berlin.
The delicate architecture of Berlin courts elevates human perception, conveying power, stability and dignity. Places, where the beauty and heritage of a once-glorious guild are celebrated. A beauty that humbles, and is able to to impose awe and reverence when entering the halls that connect to history to both the glory and horror of the past, something is mostly lost in a post-modern society.
Ultimately, the positive impact was the most gratifying aspect of the ordeal. People were immensely grateful for things that seemed ridiculously simple for me. Like scanning a contract, researching a legal questions and present an answer that, at the very least, calmed them down. During my time as a prosecutor, I genuinely felt like I was doing a service to the community, something to be proud of, in comparison to scamming people on social media to buy my dropshipped garbage, you know?
But 10 years in, I’m not sure that it was worth the effort.
In theory, studying law rewards those who live and breathe law. In theory, analyzing complex legal cases, interpreting statues and applying legal principles to solve real-life problems, can indeed be intellectually stimulating. In theory, law teaches the invisible structures of society and how it is a tool to shape it in an real way. In theory, a passion for justice and advocacy underly law’s every move; an honorable and noble pursuit in the spirit of servitude to society.
But in practice law often feels mundane and dry. University was simply a continuation of a school-like hierarchy, a life on rails, where no hard decisions have to be made for years and thus no critical thinking is really encouraged nor celebrated. A lot of it is simply regurgitating this or that dominant opinion to pass exams.
And the status comes with its own people-pleasing obligations, as the people who give the status makes one want to keep the status. Status then acts as a sedative, an opiate, on this grueling path to prove that you are worthy of the status, worthy to enter the halls of the guild.
All of this to eventually wear a suit and stroll to the office to meditate in front of a computer for 10 hours a day, is not exactly what I expected my life to be signing up. But the opportunity costs are enormous and also, it really is comfortable—the money, the status and the impact, you know?
Fail faster
Failure is always the best way to lean,
Retracing your steps until you know,
Have no fear your wounds will heal.
For the ones among you who have nephews or cousins who aren’t sure if they should do something serious or follow their passions, let them hear it from someone who took the serious route:
Go learn a trade first! Something that earns you money and makes you truly independent from whoever has been financing your life and then go work on your fucking passions!
Life is too short to live another persons life. You don’t have time. Believe me, you don’t. There is no tomorrow. There is only now. Don’t live for another day. Don’t say, I will do this first and then I will do that. DO IT NOW. Don’t rely on anyone but yourself. Let everyone else live their petty little lives and you live yours.1
II. Things I saw this month and liked
And also, this happened:
III. So what now?
For my life after the oral exam I have some things in the kitchen:
I will keep writing these letters every week, as for the first time in a long time I feel like I am finally walking on my own path. It’s great that the gatekeepers of the old world become increasingly powerless and you can just do things without asking for permission. Slowly and gradually I wish to pivot to fiction, but these letters are here to stay.
Now that the institutional learning ends, finally the real learning starts. My next project is to learn Hebrew, so I can finally read the TaNaKh in the original and dwell on the beautiful imagery of the Hebrew language. Future topics include Creative Writing, Mythology and Positive Masculinity.
I want to read some real good fiction. In March, we start reading Dante’s Inferno with some people on the internet, and I have the Iliad and Odyssey already on it’s way. Next on my list are Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and re-reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche. If you are interested in a fiction book club, let me know.
Last Friday I was at Filmclub030, Berlin-based film lovers come together once in three weeks and discuss the art of film. Film is truly a unique medium, able to capture the soul of a group effort, as there is not much you can hide in a visual medium. I am looking forward to get back into it. Click here to get to my letterboxd.
Finally, I want to get into this whole Ray Peat situation as I feel that there are some good things in it, but one needs time to find the true in the false and the false in the true.
I have a domain now. It’s called ezradavid.com. Professional, right? Yeah so I will be learning to code to have it up and running soon. I aim at something like these simonsarris, savannah brown, haley nahman.
To keep track of all of the above, I’m starting a timestamped journal of personal notes, like an an index of what I was thinking about at the time. The primary goal is to leave small breadcrumbs to be found by the people who are into the same stuff as I am and build something together.
But for now I will enjoy the lifestyle of a Freizeitmensch.
And if you really want to, you can go study law afterwards. There is this phenomenon of people who study law later in life and are able to rush through the whole thing in 2-5 years, what takes other people 10, because they really want it.