So right there you have already eliminated some of the things that are essential to intimacy. But even worse, the legal imagination is suspicious of, and tries to eradicate, all attempts at metaphorical, poetic, or aesthetic expression. And yet we all know that intimacy is based on intuition and sympathetic understanding more than any rational meeting of the minds. And we also know that intimacy is always communicated indirectly, imaginatively. The Law simply can't get this given the current restrained nature of its imaginative capabilities, and this inability is reflected in the problems that lawyers have with intimate relationships.
Depression is a lowering of the spirit.
When we are depressed we lose interest in our transcendent plans, our flaming ambitions. What often is missed is that spiritual disciplines such as the Law require depression by the very steadfastness of their opposition to it. We must remember that depression brings fantasies of decline and death, realities that the legal mind typically tries to excise from its imagination. I sometimes wonder if the depression that lawyers feel really isn't a friend in disguise, a helping hand trying to reconnect lawyers with life down here below the clouds. As you might expect, it is hard to gather statistics on something like that, but there are studies that suggest that the rate of suicide is higher among lawyers.