Pieter de Jode (II): Landscape with the Three Graces (1628 - 1670)

The three Graces of Greek mythology were Aglaea, Euphrosyne, and Thalia. Aglaea symbolized splendor and radiance, Euphrosyne represented mirth and joy, and Thalia embodied good cheer and bloom.

"Even LittleOldMe might well be worth it."

It’s one thing for me to treat others Decently and quite another for me to treat myself that way. Even the sparest rules of comportment demand that I treat others Decently, but no such strictures exist defining how I should treat myself—quite the opposite. I expect to sacrifice myself for some imagined betterment of others, as if I weren’t quite worth the effort to respect. And we hold in esteem those who do sacrifice themselves, even when nothing particularly useful or helpful comes of it. And we’re proud of these efforts ourselves. My ego swells when I tell others how I very narrowly avoided serious injury when engaging in some otherwise completely pedestrian activity, or even how I injured myself. It occurs to me that almost nobody really runs marathons to torture themselves. Yet, it seems as though every veteran of them shares harrowing stories of their personal punishments when running their races.

My mother would discount her own presence by referring to herself as “Little Old Me.” She’d deploy this gem when disclosing some self-sacrifice to which she knew she wasn’t supposed to admit. It was her way of saying that she might have deserved better, an ironic statement meaning almost precisely its opposite. My mother was never a Little Old anything, even when she grew little and old. She was a memorable presence and always a force to be reckoned with, but even she occasionally felt much smaller than she knew herself to be. She was even capable of punishing herself for her shortcomings, of treating herself much less than Decently when under stress or duress. Like anyone, she could punish herself more than anyone else could ever punish her, and she sometimes made good on that tacit threat, treating herself much less than the Decently everyone deserves.

I apparently didn’t fall too far from that tree, for what I know about her, I know because it’s also true about this LittleOldMe, too. I do not always choose to treat myself as Decently as I might deserve, usually because in the moment of commission, I don’t see myself as worth very much attention. Maybe I’m embarrassed that one of my poorly hidden vulnerabilities became visible. Still, I have proven myself fully capable of responding least generously to my own needs, to quietly or noisily discount them as signs of intolerable weakness. Deep down, I believe that I really should have been an exception, that the aches and pains considered par for the course have been wrongly allocated in my direction. I seem to punish myself most vehemently whenever this LittleOldMe commits something human.

I have no prescription, no all-purpose homily intended to make this sort of behavior okay. It’s one of my many frailties. I know myself to be a deep-down hypocrite when it comes to dispensing Decency, holding one ethic for myself and quite another for pretty much everybody else. Far be it for LittleOldMe to figure this out, other than to acknowledge its presence. I am sometimes capable of intervening in my own interest in the moment of commission, or relatively quickly thereafter, but this was never a native skill. I learned to subtly punish myself for committing any sin that confirmed my humanity. Neither God nor much of an exception, LittleOldMe always seemed to have been cursed to be me. I might have been a BigPowerfulMe instead, though I might be wise to dread that self-image more than I fear my LittleOldMe. Decency demands that I sometimes deploy my best for me, though this expectation seems galling.

None of us turns out to be half as powerful as we sometimes seem to be to others. Gratefully, few of us are as powerless as we might most often seem to ourselves. We’re capable of Decency regardless, whether powerful or powerless, because Decency appears to be the great leveler. It elevates those of us accustomed to thinking of ourselves as gutter inhabitants. It likewise tempers the arrogance that tends to attract itself to the most powerful. Decency might seem to be the great leveler, but never greater than when it’s deployed in favor of its giver. It’s a Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First proposition. LittleOldMe might be eternally unworthy of Decency, though that might be the very reason it’s essential that even the littlest and oldest Me dispense and receive it. Even LittleOldMe might well be worth it.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz