GUEST SHOT

The Sins: An Occasional Series

by Bill Sheldon

Sloth As A Ruling Passion

I'VE OFTEN THOUGHT that the difference between what goes on in my head and a great novel is, well, the writing. And then there're the inventions that never quite made it to paper. The songs that died before I got to the piano. Certainly the landscaping I've planned for the back yards of the last two houses I've owned. And, of course, the three or four magazines James Reel and I have talked about starting.

I do recall the week I argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on a landmark case. I was really nervous, but I had been on the case for seven years before it got to that point, and could have argued it in my sleep.

It was hard to imagine that I'd ever get that far, but I did. I represented the plaintiffs in a suit against the U.S. Government under the Federal Tort Claims Act. It was a dog-bite case, unfortunately. I had hoped my first time up to the Supremes would be on some really moving issue of the Americans With Disabilities Act or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- something sexier than a dog-bite. Nonetheless, my case settled an open question relating to enforcement of regulations on military bases, and resulted in a significant 6-figure judgement.

After that, the offers from bigger law firms were hard to turn down, but then, I was an individualist, an iconoclast, not a big-company suit.

And then there's the fact that this entire episode took place in a sort of twilight sleep one night in my apartment in Tucson during my third year of law practice.

Those who attribute sloth only to couch potatoes and channel surfers lack imagination and insight. Sloth is so rich in possibilities. It is the foundation of a satisfyingly unfulfilled life. It comes in many forms for me -- fantasy, procrastination, avoidance behavior (even very industrious avoidance behavior).

While I was supposed to be studying for the Bar exam, I was actually alternating between study and learning to read music for the classical guitar. I made a lot of progress on the guitar that month, but almost none afterwards. I never did get beyond simple melodies. That, however, did not stop me from imagining myself a partner in a successful guitar duo, making Villa Lobos a household name. While I should have been improving my cross-examination skills, I wrote a two-act play about a lawyer who either is a world-class composer or has gone insane and imagines himself to have been such.

I did write a novel, once. I was hung-over from my next-to-last month-long drunk (about 10 years ago) and deeply bitter about a lost love. I cultivated the self-pity that comes so naturally in that state. My novel was about a marriage that ended in multiple murders and turned on a complicated plot of greed and lust involving a million-dollar life insurance policy back when a million dollars was a lot of money. I stole most of the plot from James Cain, added a lesbian twist and a couple of switched corpses burned "beyond recognition."

You can't buy it anywhere since I never finished editing it or submitted it to any publishers. It has been on the shelf for a decade. Several friends have been entertained by it, and I think it made my wife (when we were just dating) think I had real potential.

Quite a number of people have been impressed by my potential.

I have shelves full of partially read books, not to mention the unread books I had to have because they were mentioned in the books I did read.

The list of my projects -- literary, musical, legal, academic, software, household inventions, non-profit corporations of enormous social value, weight-loss -- that have ended shortly after conception is astounding. I can't recall the majority of the excuses, but I have no doubt that if I just took a few days to make a list of them it would be worth publishing.

Maybe I'll do that next weekend.

Bill Sheldon is a lawyer, an avid reader, a writer and a world-class procrastinator. He makes his home in Flagstaff, Arizona.

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