Posted on by Fred

On Being Small Time

I know that there are many writers and podcasters who have a massive following. I know they make a living doing what they do, and that they change people’s minds about ideas. I have respect for them. I believe what they are doing is important. It can make a difference. I, however, like my quiet anonymity on my little Front Porch. My podcast, “The Front Porch Podcast” has an estimated audience of, I believe, 15 right now. While that’s embarrassing for many, it’s really the way I like to envision it. It’s just me talking to a few folks. If you’d like to join them, I have 18 or 19 episodes up as of this writing, and you can find them here:

https://anchor.fm/fred-eder

I believe I lost one of the few fans my podcast has today. And that’s a shame, but it is probably also my fault.

He believes I share too much of who I am, and it makes me appear too flawed. I don’t deny my flaws. In fact, I’m rather fond of them. He believed I had the potential to be a sort of cultural warrior. I don’t believe I do.

The following was the last of my writing he read. I’m posting it here to make it less likely that I misrepresent myself in the future.

Dear Listener

I never saw myself as a warrior. I’m more of a Vulcan than a Klingon.

I have no shame about who I am. I do have some pride in it. My experiences have shaped me into who I am.

How I learned what I learned is relevant to understanding both it, and why I believe it.

I don’t mind admitting that Captain Kirk began shaping who I became when I was 4 or 5 years old. I think it’s important to recognize both the power and value of Art.

Religion and Art

Where most people have religion, I have Art.

Religion has 3 main functions:

1. To answer questions we can’t answer by traditional means. What happens after I die tends to be high on the list.

2. To give one a moral code. This is good. That is bad. Nearly every religion will decide those things for you.

3. To offer comfort. Religion is lovely when someone dies. The idea that my father is in a better place would bring me comfort if I could believe it.

Art does the same things.

1. It answers questions that can’t be answered in traditional ways. One thing that I am fairly certain that will happen after I die is that the Art I have created will live on. Maybe only for a day or so, but it would continue to touch people.

It also gives me some beautiful ideas about what happens when we die. I don’t know that any of them are right, but it’s still nice to think about.

2. It provides a moral code. I learned my morality by learning to empathize with fictional characters. I have wept when Tom Robinson was convicted, and I have cheered when Sherlock Holmes caught Dr. Roylott. No one wrote me a set of rules. They showed me in books and movies and paintings and music and dance.

3. I find my comfort in Art. When Spock died, Dr. McCoy said, “He’s never really dead… as long as we remember him.” I understand that feeling.

Hemingway told me, “Man is not made for defeat; a man can be destroyed, but not defeated.”

Being Human

If I am open about who I am, I make myself more human. I am at least as flawed as anyone else. I am nothing special. I just believe some things about the world, and I hope I can get a couple more people to share the idea that homelessness, poverty, and hunger are failures of civilization. I would like people to believe that Us vs. Them is a bad idea. There is no Them. We are all Us.

If I can get a few more people to consider those ideas, that’s enough for me.

I don’t want to shout in a stadium… ever. I want to talk quietly on my Front Porch with anyone who cares to listen.

Posted on by Fred

9 People’s Favorite Thing

My roommate gave this to me today. My entire Salinger collection was lost in the last move, and this was a fantastic gift.

I don’t have to see
What’s ahead of me
Let’s just take our time
And Shine

Sara Niemietz
W.G. Snuffy Walden

A friend of mine told me once that she would rather be 9 people’s favorite thing than 100 people’s 9th favorite thing. I took the words to heart because she was an artist whose work I admire and respect. I don’t believe she was the first to say it. I believe she even said she was quoting someone. But, regardless of the original author, the words helped to reshape the way I see Art, in general. Or, perhaps a better way to say it would be that she sharpened my view of it.

Salinger said the same thing. It’s about the Perils of Mediocrity.

“I’d swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I’d hate it. I wouldn’t even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I’d play it in the goddamn closet.”

Holden Caulfield

I secretly write for an audience of, perhaps, 9 people. The opinions of the rest of the world mean little to me. That said, please don’t make the assumption that because we don’t know each other you’re not on that list. More than one of the people on my list is someone of whose existence I am entirely unaware.

The others are friends of mine, and they have no idea they are on The List. I can’t tell them. It would miss the point if I let them know that when they click “Like,” or even better, make a comment on something I’ve written, I experience Joy. If it’s only to be nice to me, it loses its meaning. It’s the idea that who I am has connected to these people in a way that moves them deeply enough for them to have felt the desire to respond in some way; that feels good. I am all but a hermit. Social situations scare the hell out of me. What I enjoy most is the connection of minds, or, perhaps, for lack of a better term, souls. For a few moments we are sharing our thoughts.

People are like music for me. Each piece of music creates its own unique feeling. And I keep a large music collection because there are some days when I need to feel what Mozart brings, and there are others when I need Chicago.

Friends are songs in my collection. Sadly, I can’t just have them at the moment I feel like they’re what I need. So, I have music to do what friends can do. This week it’s been almost exclusively the new Sara Niemietz album. I just got it, and it helps me write. At the end, she reminds me to Shine. That’s what I’m trying to do.

Some of you make me smile. Some of you are people whose opinions and ideas I respect deeply. Some of you make me want to write. And one of you is the most important reason for me to write. All of you, however, to a greater or lesser extent, make me want to Shine. I can enjoy as many different people as I can pieces of music. But, like music, I need more of some and less of others.

I have accepted, and even learned to celebrate, that my Art will never be popular. But, if I can join raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens on the lists of 9 people, I feel like I have done all I could hope.

To those of you who take the time to read my words, I offer my sincere gratitude. It matters more than you probably think.

Love,

Fred

Posted on by Fred · 2 Comments

Empathy and Art

Empathy and Art

My earliest memory of feeling empathy is Christmas 1969. I was 7 years old, sitting under a tree with an obscene number of gifts I had just opened, and feeling truly ecstatic, when I noticed my Mother had no Christmas presents. Not one. I burst into tears of guilt. My father took me to a drug store, and we found Mom a candle, and it was my first present to her. Neither Dad nor I had any ability to wrap a candle, so we gave it to Mom to wrap. And when she opened it an hour or so later, she loved that candle as she loved her children. She got candles from me for decades after that, and for nearly every occasion. It took several additional hours for me to recognize that Dad hadn’t gotten any presents, either, and Mom took me to the drug store to buy Dad a pipe. I gave him most of the pipes he used to smoke. These Traditions were the product of Empathy.

I have, and I would guess most of you have, wept for Tom Robinson. I have cheered for Sherlock Holmes. I have spoken with Hamlet repeatedly about the value and meaning (or lack thereof) of life. I have felt joy for Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars. I learned Friendship from Sam and Frodo, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. I learned courage from Santiago and his marlin, and morality from Atticus Finch. I have faced George’s agonizing moral dilemma concerning his best friend, Lenny, when George tells him to think about the rabbits. These are all other examples of Empathy.

I believe Empathy is essential to being human. Too much Empathy is dangerous, of course. You can’t possibly grieve for every tragedy in the world. No one has that vast an emotional landscape. But, the inability to feel for others is, in my mind, the root of evil. You don’t kill people not because it’s against the law, but because you can feel for someone besides yourself. You won’t commit most acts of violence or cruelty for the same reasons. You can imagine how you would feel if it happened to you. You can’t do something you believe to be evil because you can experience the emotions of Others.

I believe an exposure to The Arts is essential for increasing a person’s Empathy. It’s in books, movies, music, paintings, poetry, dance, and other forms of Art that we find our own feelings. And it’s where we learn to feel the joys and pains that our fellow travelers on this little ball in space are likely to feel, themselves. It’s in catharsis that we learn the most about ourselves and each other.

When we can understand each other, we can dispense with the idea of Us vs. Them. We can move forward together, as a species, and this is a product of Empathy. I care about you because I recognize some of myself in you. I hope you can see some of yourself in me, too.