M.E. Edwards: Full of worries (1892 - 1905)

Gallery Text: Sheet with 6 representations of different kinds, including representations of a man who finds a sick boy on the street, a traveler who eats his bread and a man who makes wooden dolls. Between the images, verses in book print.

"Decency seems to reliably visit only those not desperately searching for it."

It might be way past time that I clear up one possible misunderstanding: Decencies almost exclusively come in very small packaging. I’m not denigrating grand gestures, for those most certainly have their place. Nor do I badmouth the occasional excesses which add that certain celebratory spirit to life. The grandiose and even the gross definitely have their places, but neither proves necessary nor sufficient to induce the genuinely Decent. Decency almost exclusively appears in tiny sizes, and even when it seems to appear in one of the larger ones, it tends to be some attribute of the thing that carries the Decency within it. The balance usually turns out to be packaging.

The often disappointing attempt to produce grand changes tends to be entirely overshadowed by the tiny, thoughtful gift —the kindergarten artwork, rather than the Hope diamond. We seem to imagine great wealth as a necessary enabler of significant Decency, as if grand-scale philanthropy were somehow essential to reliably produce it. It would doubtless prove easier to pay for solutions to the more massive and tenacious problems if we were only wealthier than Croesus, though Croesus, with his wealth, was anything but benevolent. He subjugated his subjects, hardly a Decent occupation for anyone, king or peasant. Wealth seems more burdensome than liberating, more demanding than forgiving. It brings certain imperatives that seem to dwarf more ordinary considerations. It seems too distracted to engage on any truly human basis. Wealth appears to belong to that class of possessions no one ever freely gives away, and freely giving serves as the essential soul of Decency. Most of these contributions necessarily come in small packages.

One key to living Decently involves continually scanning for little opportunities. This activity almost guarantees the proper focus. Scanning for the grandiose easily blinds the best of us to the existence of any tiniest. Peering and planning into any far distance obscures our present. Decency exists in tiny presents, where a small gesture carries more than its weight in even fool’s gold. Decency depends upon this leverage. It seems to work best at almost an atomic level. Maybe Decency represents quantum energy, invisible but incredibly powerful, and abiding by rules other scales can’t sense or make very much sense of: black holes, strange attractors, quantum entanglements. Those who focus on the more macroscopic world can never experience the magic embodied in the more micro ones.

Some insist that manners don’t matter much, that they’re vestiges of privilege and therefore worse than worthless in this age. They argue that freedom includes infringing upon neighbors’ undefended spaces; they consequently defend to the death of Decency itself, it seems. Some imagine they’ll become Decent once they’ve won the race to some presumed prosperity, when they will finally be able to afford the cost of sharing. Others insist that Decency doesn’t really exist because it rarely affects the almighty bottom line. Decency isn’t capable of justifying itself, but never really needs to. It’s an experience only appreciated by those engaged in it. It’s invisible to all others, existing beyond their meager imaginations and experience. They might attempt another grand gesture, then wonder why they still feel so goddamned hollow inside. I will not confide the secret, but only because I do not know it. Decency seems to reliably visit only those not desperately searching for it.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz