194. From the Vault: The Light and the Dark of a Hungry Heart: W. David Ball [reads] ‘Ulysses’

2 Pages with MBS

Today, we're pulling one of our best episodes from the vaults, featuring the brilliant W. David Ball.

Get book links and resources at http://2pageswithmbs.com and subscribe to the 2 Pages newsletter at https://2pageswithmbs.substack.com.

Where do you find your people? I think I’m still looking for mine, and perhaps you are, too. What often happens is there’s an initial rough sort where you get thrown in with others who have similar labels - but that’s just the start of it. It’s up to you to find your people amongst everyone. I realized that I keep looking for people who make me both think and laugh, meaning I need to seek them out to give them the opportunity to do so. Of course, sometimes your people don’t actually need to be found, they need to be rediscovered; they’re already there, waiting for you to reach out to them and say hello.

Today’s guest is a law professor with articles published in the Columbia Law Review, Yale Law & Policy Review, the American Journal of Criminal Law, and many more. His full name is W. David Ball, but I know him as my friend Dave, someone I met when we were newly minted Rhodes scholars at Oxford in the early 1990s. Get‌ ‌book‌ ‌links‌ ‌and‌ ‌resources‌ ‌at‌ https://www.mbs.works/2-pages-podcast/

Dave reads the poem, ‘Ulysses’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. [reading begins at 16:45]

Hear us discuss:

“I’d decided that I was going to be me, because there’s no way I could fake that.” [9:25] | How to keep your artistic spirit alive: “The essence of creativity is being in touch with who you are, what you want to say to others, and how other people have moved you.” [11:48] | The process of keeping an open heart in your closest relationships. [24:20] | Sitting with ambition (as a Rhodes scholar). [28:13] | Work in the criminal legal system: “I have calluses - not in the sense where I don’t feel, but where my skin isn’t being burnt off.” [33:01]