Thank God for…divorce lawyers?!
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The article reflects on the paradoxical nature of human existence and the imperfectability of the world. The author discusses a podcast interview with a divorce lawyer who passionately loves his work despite dealing with the unpleasant aspects of broken marriages. The author questions the absurdity of finding joy in solving such undesirable problems but acknowledges the necessity of these challenges for meaningful work and personal growth. The article delves into the idea that our world, with its imperfections, provides endless opportunities for individuals to find their purpose by bridging the gap between the real and the ideal. The piece encourages readers to embrace this absurdity, accept the perpetual supply of problems, and find fulfillment in the work they love.
Thank God for…divorce lawyers?!
I just listened to a podcast featuring a longform interview with a divorce lawyer. It was fascinating. One reason is that my parents divorced long ago and I recognized and related to many of the themes and patterns he spoke about. It was also interesting to hear about all the ways marriages go wrong.
But the moment of that interview that I found most fascinating is without a doubt when he talked about the great love he has for his work.
And I truly believe that he loves his work, in spite of the nastiness and vitriol that he sees, the broken families he encounters, the relational hardships he helplessly observes. I absolutely believe that he finds these problems highly stimulating to navigate and solve.
My fascination comes, not from the mere fact that he loves his work, but from a sense of absurdity about the very premise of loving the work of solving such undesirable problems as these, and that humans must continue to suffer in order to keep him so happily productive.
The world is an imperfect and imperfectible place. This is a difficult but liberating truth.
The fact is that sustaining a loving and healthy marriage is an aspi-ration for many of us. And sometimes marriages go very wrong.
And because they do, divorce lawyers have a calling and vocation. And some of them love it.
Is it wrong to love it? Is it wrong for this lawyer to love this work that demands a steady supply of broken marriages?
Is it wrong for a surgeon to love appendectomies, which is only possible in a world with a steady and endless supply of inflamed appendices?
Don’t we desire a world in which no marriage fails, in which no appendix ever becomes inflamed?
The absurd truth is that, no we don’t. Because divorce lawyers and surgeons need meaningful work and opportunities for growth, just as we all do. And that requires endless problems to solve and traumas to heal. In the words of Yale physician and sociologist Nicholas Christakis, “Our professions are made of the emergencies of others.”
We don’t wish for a perfect world. We wish for the world that currently exists, the world in which each of us is afforded endless opportunity to find our calling in tandem with the urgent, regrettable problems and traumas of our fellow species-mates. Centuries ago the German polymath Leibniz (who invented calculus around the same time as Isaac Newton) advanced a theological position that our world is, in fact, the best of all possible worlds. While Voltaire abhorred this precious sentiment which he lampooned in his famous short novel Candide, considering the condition of divorce lawyers who love their work might help to give us some insight into the way Leibniz saw and thought about human life in order to arrive at such an argument.
The nature of existence, with its time and entropy, ensures a perpetually imperfectible world which continually serves up an inexhaustible supply of problems for us to solve and traumas for us to heal. And like the divorce lawyer, we love it for the endless supply of meaningful work afforded to us by our condition. Because in spite of its imperfectability we are comparing the state of what is to an imagined ideal, free of problems. We know the problems because of, and only because of, this automatic and subconscious process of comparison. And we love the opportunity to bridge the gap between the real and the ideal, each and every day.
And that’s why the divorce lawyer loves his work.
I hope you can make peace with this absurdity and find the problems you are meant to solve, the traumas you are meant to heal. Fear not, and rest assured, there will be an endless supply, always and forever. The best of all possible worlds? I don’t know that I would go that far, but I’m grateful for the work I love as well.
Note: This post has described the 5th of my 5 Perpetual, Perennial, Paradoxical, Problematic Dysfunctions of the Human Condition, which is the Sublime Sublimated Absurdity of the Ideal of Imperfectability.