Well, I wish people could say that about themselves: I do what I can do as well as I can do. And that's my part. I speak for a lot of people when I say I can't fix it all. But I can still take care of my own corner. And my corner involves writing what I write and saying what I say and hoping that it's useful.

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Originally Published on FutureHealth

Welcome back for the final installment of my interview with author, philosopher and world traveler, Robert Fulghum. Before we broke, we were talking about your various artistic outlets - each very different from the other: the writing, playing music, painting, and sculpting. And the fact that besides for the writing, you don't do any of them for a living is a big bonus. What do they give you?

It's an opportunity to exercise one's creative and innovative faculties. I tend to find found objects or objects that already exist and put them together in a way that makes sense or is beautiful. So, in my writing, it's the same thing. I don't think I have anything new whatsoever to say. And I don't think I'm particularly innovative or creative in how I do it. But, frequently, what I put side by side from found objects in the world makes some sense.

This is Garrison Keillor's great ability with his Lake Wobegon stories. He'll start out over here with something. And then he'll wander away from that and you think what happened? The guy is still standing out in the snow. And you wait two or three minutes and he comes back and he hooks something to the end of it that you never saw coming. And I think that's kind of what I try to do. I take things that don't seem to have anything to do with one another and I attach them. And so the visual is very much like the written word. And I just noticed that. I'm standing here looking outside at these things and thinking, "It's the same deal." So, thanks for asking.

You're welcome! "Meanwhile", the last essay in What on Earth Have I done? particularly resonated with me. Can you tell our readers a bit about that one?

Well, it's unusual that you would ask me about this. Because it just so happens that I'm actually writing today for my journal website something that picks up a good part of that to repeat because it's so important to me. And what's provoked it this time is my mentor of many, many years said to me, "You don't want to read the book of essays." He thinks my essays are too nice and he thinks life is a lot nastier and harder than I ever suggest. The essay in What on Earth Have I Done? is a response to a German friend who stayed in my house in Crete and left me a note saying why didn't I address in my writing all the political issues of our time and the humanitarian problems and America's place in the world.

And it was provoked by Obama's Nobel Prize speech when he talked about the nature of existence being contradictory and paradoxical and so I had this open in front of me. So I will kind of paraphrase it and go through it. Because it gets important for how anybody looks at their life.

For me, what I'm doing with my life is a matter of league and scale. And I happen to know that my mind works best on the scale of the local, the daily, and the ordinary. Writing about that is the league in which I am competent. And what I mean by this is that I think some sense of being successful in life may lie in knowing which league to play in. And if you've always been a klutz, playing basketball, for example, in my notion of success, would be being on an NBA team, I'm going to be a failure because I'm trying to get into the wrong league.

But if I'm pleased to play bocce ball with local friends and we do okay together and have a good time, then I'm in the right league. And I think this is true for any sport, or any endeavor, for that matter. Find your league where your abilities fit and flourishing there is a good thing. Epictetus nailed it a long time ago in the first century B.C. "If you can fish, fish. If you can sing, sing. If you can fight, fight. Determine what you can do. And do that."

I think, likewise, that some sense of being successful lies in knowing what scale you work best in. I give some examples: an astronomer is one whose mind can work on a cosmic scale. A physicist is one whose mind can handle the quantum scale. A theologian the metaphysical scale. A psychiatrist works with the deep picture and on and on and on. I think many people die confused and unfulfilled, because they spend a life trying to perform above or even below their abilities and perspective. They are in the wrong scale. And good old Epictetus said, "Why worry about being a nobody when what matters is being a somebody in those areas of your life over which you have control, and in which you can make a difference?"

So I respond to my German critic and my mentor's comment in saying that I know about evil and ugliness. I've been there; I'm a flawed and foolish man. I see stupidity and ugliness in my own life. And I'm as outraged and frustrated as most people. And I do the things most people try to do. And I know that ultimately the glaciers will be back. Life will evolve; we won't be here. The Earth will fall into the sun and all of that.

But I also know that I am a storyteller at heart. I am a man who goes about trying to be fully awake to the news of the immediate, the ordinary; to make sense of what I have to put up with every day and pass my thoughts along and ask "What is going on?" and "Have you noticed?" And "Now what?"

And I say, in one way or another, "The world is full of evil and good as it's ever been. But you don't want to miss the good stuff." And, if I have a message, that's pretty much what it is. I don't think that's self-defense or an apology. It's just where I am. I end the essay "The world and the universe go their inevitable way. And meanwhile" I know what I can do. And meanwhile" I do that."

Lovely.

Well, I wish people could say that about themselves: I do what I can do as well as I can do. And that's my part. I speak for a lot of people when I say I can't fix it all. But I can still take care of my own corner. And my corner involves writing what I write and saying what I say and hoping that it's useful.

Well, if everyone takes care of their corner, together we can all accomplish a lot.

Yeah and ultimately, it's hopeless, as I say. The whole thing is going to fall into the sun. But meanwhile" we act "as if' what we do is important and that this life means something. And that's not because we'll find out the meaning of it some day; it's because on any given day, we have the capacity to give it meaning.

I've enjoyed myself immensely. Thank you for spending this time with me.

Well, you're welcome. I looked at your website and I thought, "My gosh, there's all this important stuff. Why on earth would she want to talk with me?" But I'm glad we did.

I am, too.

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Part one of my interview with Robert

"Part two of my interview with Robert

Part three of my interview with Robert

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.


Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.

When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"

Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.