page 9
opinions
Homeless and drunk in law school
GEOFF GOODSON
Contributor
Law school starts in three days. There are
prostitutes around me-- I give them some
cigarettes and ask if I can sit in their corner,
which is strewn with clothing, garbage and
discarded needles. They fidget and banter,
fidget and banter. I hug my knees drunkenly
against the barrier, watching them crush up
crack and inject it into their feet. I don’t know
why I stopped here. One turns to me, spreads
her legs and says that I should pay her for the
free show. I laugh. In front there is a man
who is "tweaking," yelling at her, past her
muddled attention, right through her, about
how her vagina smells and why he fell in love
with her anyway; how romantic and how kind
he must feel. He turns to me now and is telling his story of unrequited lust: of their lives
together, drugs he gave her and how he asked
for nothing in return (except for sex, most
likely). I try to look away. He paces back
and forth, crouching as he yells and is now
screaming that I am an undercover cop. The
whole street seems to turn their gaze on me. I
suddenly realize that I am lost among the lost,
frozen in my fetal crouch-- alcohol syndrome.
Law school starts in three days.
being; a human being with dignity. You too
have dignity in your problems (whatever they
may be), be it your stress, your lack of confidence, or your fear of the future. For, this
vulnerability is what binds us together and
enables the legal profession to ground the law
in human experience and in empathy.
It often feels to some as if Osgoode members, students, faculty and professors, stand
on the shoulders of the masses: I, we, have
received great privileges in various lives. As
such, I cannot but recognize the mistakes that
have brought me to where I am today. My
personal difficulties are no more meaningful
than others’ and my responsibility is no less
unyielding and demanding. My issues have no
defence except for the contexts in which they
were chosen. But, in that light, I can only
hope that we can all live up to the expectations
that our shared personal struggles do demand
in a larger sense. If one can agree that the
women whom I described above deserve the
same sense of value as ourselves, surprisingly,
it is the gift of our own struggles that actually endow us with an inherent sense of legal
professionalism; an ability to consider the toil
behind legal facts, the common toil that unites
us all, even in an adversarial system and
which ultimately, if respected, demands that
we take our place within the circle of giving
and receiving in our communities.
As our lives and memories erode, when we
become vulnerable and as we experience
fear and hurt, one becomes aware of the true
wonder of our strange existence and meaning
in our labour becomes paramount. Without
a greater intelligence of unattainable intersubjectivity, without God or legal certainty, it
might seem that all we have left are problematic conceptions about others, about ourselves
and the ever-pressing struggles of existence.
However, it is within this very difficulty that
there is some recourse: the flawed journey
towards unattainable transcendence through
our work, the effort to still sympathize and
appreciate the experience of others, especially
when we accept the inevitable limitations of
ourselves and the power of our profession, for
me, is what life and what law is all about.
Toronto can be a lonely place. The unknown
people come at you in such waves of conspicuous anonymity that one seeks out those who
are most like themselves. So often have I
wandered the streets of Regent Park, Sherbourne and Dundas, looking for those who
a ????????????????q???????Êt???$???)???????????????????????????????????)?????????????????????????????????????)????????????????????????????)????????????????????????????????)?????????????????????????????)?????????????????????????????????)??????????????????????????????????)?????????????????????????????????????????????)5?????????????????????????)?????q????????????t????=??????!????? ??)????????????????????????????????????)??????????????????????????????????)??????????????????????????????????)????????????????????????????????????$)????????????$????????????$?????????)???????????????????????$????????????????????????????? ??????$?????????)????????????????????????????????????????)???????????????????????5?????????????)???????????????????????????????????)?????????????????????????????????????)????????????$(+
??????L????
????? ?????? ????????11@??????????????????????????????()
????? ???(????????????()=????????????????+?q????????I???????????t(??A??????????()
???????!?????5????)???????????????????(???????????????????????????()???????????????????????()A?????AI%9P???????????????)??????????????`?????M
8????)5%0???????????????????((