Leggo my ‘ego

I have been reading with much laughter the How Appalling blog, which parodies How Appealing and the perceived lack of humility of its owner. This discussion here shows we all have a little too much ego in us. Bloggers, in general, have issues. We put sitemeters on our blogs. We Google our blogs. We see who is linking to us so we post that someone is linking to us. We remind ourselves to link to those who link to us (in hopes that they will link back to us).
My nightly to do list includes:
1. Google my full name “in quotes.” Google name without “quotes”; with middle name; with middle initial; without middle initial; with shortened version of my first name.
2. Breath sigh of relief when Overpundit does not show up as a hit with my name. My privacy is safe. Become frustrated when something I posted when I was nineteen (using foul language) is available for the world to see. After all, the world IS watching.
3. Reflect on No. 2. Realize that NO ONE cares who I am. And that those who do don’t care enough to Google me, especially given number of derivatives of my name.
4. Reflect on No. 3. Repudiate No. 3.
5. Look at my sitemeter. Realize that I don’t get very many daily hits.
6. Realize that I have a group of small but dedicated loyal readers. Continue the mission.
7. Reflect on No. 6. Realize I must be like Wittgenstein or Nietzsche. Look at favorable results in cases, acceptance letters from Top 25 law schools, and grades to validate self (because like the philosopher Berkeley, I am afraid that my worth as a person disappears when I turn away from these human accomplishments). Alas, the world doesn’t understand me.
8. Reflect on No. 7. Realize that my IQ barely qualifies me to attend the local tavern. Besides, I am not at MIT or Caltech studying cosmology or astrophysics. Instead, I am at law school. Even Judge Posner admitted, “Law is not the calling of geniuses.”
9. Reflect on No. 8. Repudiate No. 8.
10. Remind myself to repeat Nos. 1-9 first thing in the morning.

UPDATE: As I look at this list, which was meant as a joke, I see some truth in it. It is amazing how much worth we place on material things. I mock people who buy expensive clothes, houses, and cars – must keep up with the Smith’s. Yet don’t I do the same thing? Don’t I say, “Boy, no one I know has had a brief lead to X result. No one scored this high a grade in Y. No one I know has X’s direct phone number or worked with lawyer Z.” It really makes me sad to realize how much weight I place on these things.

Kant said that when you sit in a dark room, alone, only then are you with your true self. Can this be? Can we be – i.e., exist in our own minds – attached from worldly trappings or accomplishments? What about spiritual accomplishments. Don’t we too often turn these into worldly trappings by thinking, “I am enlightened. I understand this scripture or solved this Zen riddle?”

I think that law school turns people into status whores. Before law school I reflected on life, truth, goodness: I now consider those “fluffy” subjects left to people not smart enough for the rigor of law. And yet my mind was sharper pre-law. A good philosophy graduate student would smoke any law professor or lawyer in a debate. I would put my reputation on a Princeton graduate student against Lawrence Tribe, Alan Dershowtiz, Doug Kmiec, Ken Starr, etc. Contrast the journal Mind with the Harvard Law Review. Which is clearer, more persuasive? Contrast a book by Simon Blackburn or Daniel Dennett with any legal thinker, including Posner.

I met Simon Blackburn, Crispin Wright and other luminaries of philosophy. Their egos are microscopic compared to that of the average lawyer or law student. The further up the totem pole, the brighter lawyers think they are. A Yale graduate who now professes law or works at a large law firm is almost intolerable. But could he or she outsmart a Rutgers graduate student in philosophy? Yeah, right.

What is wrong here? Why the huge egos in the law when the real geniuses study theoretical math, cosmology, astrophysics, physics, among other things?