The fear of losing my job has always lived somewhere in the deep water of my id. Sometimes it would swim closer to the surface than others, but it never let me forget its presence. I should know that the actual event is not as difficult as the worrying fear prior to the event--but I was still sure that I would be a mess after my last day of work. My wife Julie told me after I'd been home just a few days that she's never seen me in such a good mood.
I think she's right.
I've worked as a lawyer at a law firm and for two technology companies over the past 17 years. I've created contract systems, intellectual property systems, bought companies, sold companies, hung on through a slow bleed of venture capital cash until bankruptcy was the only option, and celebrated with work friends and colleagues when careful plans paid off big. For the last few of those 17 years, I've known that I ought to try something else. This blog is part of that something else.
Teaching is another big part of the something else. I have put a few classes together in the meager free time that law-work has left me, and learned that even if I never had to work again, that's what I'd spend my time doing. I still have to work, but it's time to see if I can make teaching into my work.
So together, the writing and teaching are the something else. The writing can start now, and so it will. I'll be writing week-daily about what interests me, which most days is politics, law, and my family and on some days, theology, triathlon or fly fishing.
With the introduction out of the way, I'll say just a few words about one thing that interests me today: the title of this blog. Kevin Hicks is my name, but not a good title. I spent a lot of time already not writing because I was looking for a good title--all of yesterday's writing time, in fact. Today, I went with the first thing first, and wrote. I've got a copy of Burke next to the keyboard, as well as a copy of Tolkien, hoping to find the right combination of 2 or 3 words to create some clever and recognizable reference that deals with liberty vs. tyranny, hope vs. despair. But it won't get in the way of writing, I promise.
