Category: Philosophy, Thoughts, and Musings

Those who know me well know that I have a great affinity for elephants. They may not know, however, when and how the seeds of that affinity were first sown. Though it is possible that the majesty and beauty of the largest of land mammals would, perchance, have been sufficient to attract my admiration, I have a childhood story – My Purple Elephant Story – which explains my especial affinity for elephants.

When I was in second grade, I attended Market Street Elementary School. My teacher was Mrs. Workman. She was a very pleasant teacher and generally kind, as I remember. I also recall that she allowed us, after we completed in-class assignments, to go to the back of the room to play quietly in the play area, which had items such as sculpting clay.

One day, we had an art assignment which, for me, consisted of coloring in an elephant. Well, I wanted to complete that assignment as quickly as possible so that I could go to the back of the room and use my imagination shaping the sculpting clay. So, as I recall, I grabbed a purple crayon and quickly scribbled -without much regard to the lines delineating where the elephant began and where he ended – all over the page. I then thrust my hand in the air to signal to Mrs. Workman that she should come over to see that I had finished my assignment and release me to the back of the room. Well, my scheme did not work out as I had planned. Mrs. Workman came over to inspect my work. She took a gander at it, picked it up, called my classmates’ attention to it, and said that she was disappointed in my work and that her preschooler could do better work. Needless to say, I was not released to the back of the room. But, I had learned multiple valuable lessons that day. Lessons that I appreciated and embraced: always do your best for you never know with whom your work will be shared (equally, do your best for yourself alone); embarrassment is generally a useless emotion; and shame can be a constructive emotion.

Although I know many would disapprove of Mrs. Workman’s method of addressing my failure to appropriately address the assignment, I am grateful to her and the lessons she imparted to me that day. The lessons I walked away with from that interaction have served me exceedingly well for the past five decades. Though I was ashamed of my performance on my assignment (and well I should have been), I did not cry at the exposure of my substandard work, nor did go home and complain to my Mother about what had happened in class. Finally, I did not shrivel up in embarrassment at what my classmates may have thought about my work. Rather, I resolved that going forward, I would always do my assignments as if they were being done for all to see. (Interestingly, this was a message re-enforced to me by my Grandpa Yarab a decade later when discussing painting. He told me that when painting furniture or fences or trellises, one should paint the portions which will never been seen by anyone just as one would paint the portions that would be seen, just to do the job the right way, always.)

Now, a few words about shame versus embarrassment. There is a world of difference between the two. Shame is defined as a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety. It is internal to the person and, I believe, can be a morally constructive force. Shame does not need witnesses to be activated. It serves as an internal motivation to proper conduct. It differs from embarrassment in that embarrassment is an emotional state that is associated with mild to severe levels of discomfort which is usually experienced when someone commits a socially unacceptable or frowned-upon act that is witnessed by or revealed to others. It is rarely a morally constructive force in and of itself. If you are only pained when witnesses are about, you are a lost soul.

Thus, My Purple Elephant Story, while ostensibly a story of embarrassment, is really a story of a different sort. I recognized, in hindsight, that I acted shamefully in completing the assignment, and committed to not doing so again. As such, I view it as a positive and instructive experience in my life rather than one that many would perhaps view as mortifying or unfortunate. So rather than remembering the Purple Elephant as a story to be forgotten as traumatizing, I remember it as a story of betterment.

Oh, and how did the year progress with Mrs. Workman? I recently found a midyear note and an end of year note from Mrs. Workman to my Mother. In the midyear note Mrs. Workman said the following: “I’ll keep reminding Donald to to work more carefully and slowly. I feel he’s come a long way this year.” In the end of year note she said: “I have been very pleased with Donald’s progress this year. I feel he’s been trying very hard and shown he can do the work. He has been a pleasure to have in class.” A Purple Elephant apparently did the trick.

The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

When I was in junior high school, I read voraciously whatever interesting tomes I was able to get my hands on at garage sales, from the library, or from discount bins at the stores. There was no particular rhyme nor reason to what would make its way into my hands, but I was fortunate that some fine books occasionally did. I do remember that at one point I wrote down on a piece of paper a number of lines from several of the books that I considered most instructive to me as a budding young man. I folded that paper many times and placed it carefully in my wallet so that it could accompany me through life. And it did as it remained in that wallet, which became quite battered, for many, many years. If I recall correctly, that battered piece of paper remained in my wallet through law school and into the first years of my employment as a federal civil rights attorney. One of the quotes included on that paper, and which made the greatest impression upon me throughout my life, was the line quoted above, which is from T.S. Elliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. In the play the line was spoken by St. Thomas Becket.

Because I read Murder in the Cathedral, over the many decades of my life, I have often paused to reflect upon my motivations before performing deeds for which I might be credited by others to ensure that I was appropriately and well-motivated. And, in truth, when I have found that I was “ill-motivated,” in whole or in part, I have sought to purge, as well as I could, the treason from my soul.

Upon reflection, I consider myself fortunate that I stumbled – for surely it was happenstance itself –upon this lesson at so early an age to guide me through life. For virtuous actions stained by improper motive would be weighed deficient, indeed, in the final accounting.