I’m sort of a literary chameleon. I fall into the cult of personality of whomever I’m reading about. So pretentious to say whomever. I don’t even know if it’s the right usage. I remember reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs a few years ago and thought “I’m gonna start the next Apple.” Then I realized I owned a flip phone and my solution to restarting our internet modem is unplug it and plug it back in. I read about the Inklings last summer – C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, et al. – and thought “Maybe I’ll teach at Oxford.” All this to say, it’s easy in life to get caught up in other people’s fame or success. I try to stay grounded by reminding myself that all of these people had their own struggles and that their success didn’t come easily or by chance. Steve Jobs was removed as CEO of the company he started. C.S. Lewis lost his mother at a young age and his wife died after only a few years of marriage. I think it was Kobe Bryant who said that he doesn’t believe in talent. There’s no such thing. Just hard work.
One of my passions is reading and writing, and someday I’d like to turn that into a profession. In the meantime, I ask myself what I ask my players before practice, “What are you (what am I) doing today to get to where you want to be?” While the piece included in this blog is much more academic than my typical blog post, I think you’ll find the topic interesting. If you’ve never heard of Murray Rothbard, I’m sure you’ve heard of Bob Dylan and Woody Allen. I submitted it to an academic journal and even though the editor gave me useful feedback, it wasn’t picked up. In the meantime I may revise and send it elsewhere, or start something new entirely. It’s all part of the process though.
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*Update as of October, 2018*
I had the good fortune to revise and present this paper at the Libertarian Scholars Conference in New York earlier this month. The conference was a staple of emerging libertarian scholarship in the 1970s and 80s but had not been held in quite some time. The revival of it this year was momentous as young (and not so young) libertarians around the country met to share new ideas and academic work. I felt honored to be able to be in their company, and received great constructive criticism by none other than Dr. Walter Block (pictured below). While I am still trying to find an outlet to publish the paper, the conference was an invaluable experience.
I have attached a link to my paper below if readers are interested.
LSC_Jewish Anarchism in Modern America
Kollin Fields 