BALANCE
some reflections on fame and influence
My wife and I were holiday
shopping. The store selling compact disks was
suitably blackened inside, so that a customer's eyes would
be drawn only to the two things that mattered: the racks of
juvenile "music" and the two or three pretty
salespeople. Our twenty-something daughter, away at
college, had included "Paul Simon's latest CD" on her want
list. Her retro musical tastes run from Marty Robbins
and Pete Seeger to the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel.
I told the nineteen-ish salesgirl that I was looking for
Paul Simon's latest CD. She regarded me frankly for a
moment and then said: "I think I've heard of him." A
pause, then: "Is it instrumental?"
Beth and I exchanged a glance of shared dismay. There
was something utterly shattering in the girl's
ignorance. In the 1930s Albert Jay Nock, a retro
curmudgeon with a privileged Midwestern upbringing,
published Memoirs of a Superfluous Man. In
one of my favorite passages, he described "invincible
ignorance" and his conviction that the invincibly ignorant,
just as the poor that Jesus spoke of, will always be with
us. Jesus didn't venture that the poor who would
always be with us would be voluntarily, even deliberately
poor, although some clearly are. Nock, however, did
make a distinction between people who simply can't learn,
whom we accept as dependent, and those who, with
self-congratulatory self-assurance, refuse to edify
themselves. These latter have chosen, out of laziness
perhaps, or out of an entitlement arrogance, not to tax
their minds beyond that degree pressed upon them by
society's insistence that they proceed only so far through
school. They may submit, reluctantly, to brief
enrollment at a college, but escaping from the torture of
learning is their earliest objective. These are the
invincibly ignorant.
I don't know that this describes the salesgirl who was
going to help me find Paul Simon among the LL Cool Js and
discounted Spice "Girls." Her immediate ignorance of
Paul Simon may have been as coincidental as my immediate
oblivion about the defensive line of the New England
Patriots. We found the CD, and my daughter's wish was
fulfilled.
I, however, was left with an lump in my gut that I couldn't
dismiss. How could Paul Simon, whose work is
pervasive, whose face is an icon, and whose name, for
crying out loud, is tied to so much of American culture, be
so unknown to a record store clerk in 2001!?
It's not that I haven't desired some renown; I've wondered
what it would be like. If I could have been an
Olympic athlete, for instance, it would have been enough
for me simply to have been on the team. I wouldn't
have expected a medal. I wouldn't have berated myself
for a less-than-perfect performance. I would have
been thrilled just to know I had stood alongside, and maybe
even earned the respect of, the best there's ever been in
that sport or event.
The desire for fame doesn't possess me. That young
salesgirl taught - yes, taught - me, though, that even if
it were within my grasp, fame would likely be a
disappointment even in my own lifetime. That wouldn't
diminish the accomplishment that brought it on. While
I don't applaud everything Paul Simon has composed or
performed, I still insist that he is one of the greatest
musical talents of the last half century - one of the best
there's ever been. He can take comfort in that.
Centuries hence, an ever-diminishing cadre of music
scholars will still know who he was and what he did.
A few of his works will be transformed into public domain
sound bytes over time, just as snatches of Rossini and
Borodin are commonly heard today without acknowledgement of
their sources.
Herewith, a quiz. Match the names in the top group
with the area of accomplishment in the bottom list.
Then ask five adults 18 and older to do the same. To
improve the odds for Americans, no really foreign-sounding
names have been included. But to reduce the odds for
Americans, no entertainers are included. A
couple of zingers are in there, so consider 20 a perfect
score. You won't need a statistician to analyze the
results, especially after you've seen how well five others
complete it.
Aaron
Carver
Copland
Ellington
Fulton
Goodall
Goya
Hawking
Heyerdahl
Hurston
Kroc
L’Engle
Nabokov
Robinson
Salk
Singer
Smith
Sousa
Walesa
Wells
Whitney
Wyeth
painting
invention
history
statesmanship
music
statesmanship
literature
science
sport
literature
literature
business
literature
exploring
science
painting
zoology
invention
music
music
science
sport
For many who know their work, these are among the best
there's ever been. And yet, within a generation or
two, diplomas will be conferred upon crops of
newly-certified adults, most of whom will never know the
names above.
This music shopping experience rattled me and left me very
unsettled for many months. I didn't seek therapy, but
once I identified the source of my discouragement I began
to recover. It wasn't my lack of fame that I lamented
- I've never had it and never will. Troubling was the
realization that those whose work I most respected, that I
have most wanted my children to know and ponder and discuss
with me and appreciate as I do, are so easily being plowed
under by the shrillness and glitter of pop culture with its
indifference to depth in education and its emphasis on
self-indulgence.
I began to recover. I understand, and I hope that
Paul Simon understands, that the urge to create should be
answered without regard for the renown or the
rewards. If the music is in you, let it pour
forth. If someone appreciates you and promotes your
work for you, accept the assistance. If it pays
handsomely, accept that as well, and make wise use of
it. If no one appreciates it as you pour it forth,
though, sing anyway. Satisfy yourself! Satisfy
yourself; that was the first lesson I re-learned.
If you are creating readable or singable or visible works
of art, or you are making discoveries in the sciences, the
next important realization is that you are, in spite of the
fact that the law may protect your right to capitalize on
your work, giving something away. The world may be a
better place because of your effort. Those who
haven't paid for your CDs will nevertheless hear your tune
in some setting. They will hum it, be inspired by it,
and carry it with them. To those who habitually hum
your tunes, you have given something.
If you are an author, others may plagiarize your work, but
your words may have changed a life. Whether you are
acknowledged or not, now or five hundred years from now,
you did it.
Your painting may show up as a background on a computer
desktop because someone snapped a picture of it against the
gallery's policy. Someone was impressed with what you
did. Acknowledged or not, you have soothed someone
who may never know your name.
Once your name is no longer associated with your work, your
witty phrase turned into an aphorism has also become a
random act of kindness. Everyone appreciates your
skillful expression of what others were unable to put into
words, but no one knows it originated with you.
I came, then, to the idea of balance. My
discretionary creative efforts, those things I do because I
like to - which for me involve, at times, expressing ideas
in words, at times arranging musical notes in new and
beautiful patterns, and at times crafting tiny objects with
my hands - I should do in order to satisfy myself.
The net effect, if there is ever to be any effect, will be
to edify, entertain, or inspire as few as one human being
who comes after me. The one who benefits right now is
I. That much I can count on; more than that I cannot.
Something in me, then, wants to know that I am engaged in
discretionary work that also benefits someone else in my
lifetime. It's okay to create and hope that it
affects others centuries hence, but if I'm the only current
beneficiary of my creative efforts, then I need to find
other tasks to engage in as well. If I don't, then
I'm like a rich man who hoards his wealth knowing that
unknowable individuals will benefit long after he has died
and concludes, therefore, that he has been charitable in
the future, so his soul is safe. For those who use
the Book of Common Prayer in their worship, the
Great Thanksgiving ends with: "And now, Father, send us out
to do the work you have given us to do." I need to
discern what that work is as well, and include it in my
routine.
If I attend diligently to the job that provides a paycheck
and health insurance, and if I attend responsibly to the
cares of family life, I will have peace on a practical
level. Then a little time will be left to my
discretion, to be spent, I hope, in obscure oblivion.
If, in those precious hours that are mine to control, I do
some of that which satisfies my creative bent, and I do
some of that which my God has given me to do among my
neighbors, I think there will be a balance and I will be
content.
Yes, I must discern some work that involves some further
sacrifice of my time and which does not selfishly satisfy
me. And I must leave a little time to answer the
creative call or else I will be a frustrated and
unproductive person. While I may suspect my own
creative fulfillment will affect someone unknowable
somewhere, some day, I must also dabble in the work the
Creator has given us to do. If I ignore my fellow man
in favor of myself and suspected beneficiaries in some
unforeseeable time, I have not struck a balance. For
those who believe in the Christ, (and this is as close to a
sermon as I will get), it comes home to roost in the line:
"Whatsoever you do unto the least of these my brethren, you
have done it also unto me." Ignore the least of these
his brethren, ignore him.
I will be content because that which the world finds among
my effects when I'm gone, with or without my name signed to
it, and that which I have put before the world in my
lifetime, either for self-actualization (to use Maslow's
term) or in order to do the work I have been given to do,
will have been done not in order that my name be made
famous - look what fleeting fame Paul Simon has! - but that
people unknown to me as I am to them will be a little
better off. And, quickly forgotten as I will be -
eventually a mere ancestor on someone's family tree - God
may look favorably upon the balance I have struck, and I
will have enjoyed myself along the way.
2002
©DamnYankee.com
