Phi Kappa Phi Initiation







As some of you may know, I currently serve as the president for the UB chapter of Phi Kappa Phi. I was happy this year to serve the students who have earned this incredible distinction. I was not as pleased to wear the yellow thing that made me look like a bishop, but you can judge for yourselves from the photos.

Bridgeport: The Musical





Here are some pictures from the recent play by the Wednesday Afternoon Musical Club (founded in 1897). They used my book, Bridgeport: Tales from the Park City, to provide text in between songs. I particularly liked the way they worked in Catherine Moore, lighthouse keeper extraordinaire. You can see her carrying her lantern around the church in picture one.

It took place in Easton at the Jesse Lee Methodist Church, and the Club wants to take it on the road. It really gives a sense of pride about a much maligned city!

Finalist!

My novella, A City of Old Stories, was chosen as a finalist for the Snake Nation Press Serena McDonald Kennedy Award. I see that they put me at the top of the list, too. Maybe that means the editors (who usually pick the finalists in these cases) liked mine the best. Too bad the judge did not, but it's a good sign for the future.

I have been told by several people who read it that it is the best thing I have written (so far). I hope someday that you all will get to judge that for yourselves.

Dear Joyce Carol Oates

I’m writing to you about our mutual problem. You know what I’m referring to – the tendency to write a little too much every year, a few too many novels every decade. I’m working on four books at once right now and I’m not going to get the Nobel Prize doing that, no ma’am. I mean, how can we think that we’re going to create the luminous literature of eternity without more serious reflection?

Slow down, I tell myself. I don’t want to be like you, writing too much, too often, with too little editing. But I can’t help it; I’m addicted to language. Even this letter should have been more carefully considered and revised. I should have sat on it for a year at least, mulling over content and form, choosing each word with a nearly psychotic deliberation. But I didn’t. Why? Are we victims of the same lexicographic disease?

Perhaps we think that through this extraordinary volume the magic expressions will appear, the magic combination that will finally grant us a throne in the pantheon of giants. And maybe that strategy will work; maybe sheer quantity will convince the critics and readers to give us the approbation we know we deserve. But something tells me that more precise and particularized verbiage would be the smarter course and so I’m passing on this thought to you. Who knows what works of genius await someone of your obvious talent?

I just want what all writers want: to write one perfect sentence. I know you do, too, Ms. Oates. Let’s work on that together.

Your humble servant,
Eric D. Lehman

The Perils of Comfort

Without the weight given by a wound consciously realized, the man leads a provisional life.
- Robert Bly

People constantly ask why I hike long distances. “To prevent myself from becoming too comfortable” is one of my answers. Inevitably, with confused or angry expressions they ask: “What’s wrong with comfort?” When an otherwise stoic friend said something similar recently, I realized how deeply the connection between comfort and happiness has grown in Western culture, a connection that grows more solid and unchallenged every day.

In the past, when life was much more difficult for humans, comfort was a more positive goal. After struggling against cave lions for aurochs meat and dragging it back to the den, the pursuit of physical and psychological relaxation seemed a worthy one. But now, when lazy people conveniently buy their comfort from convenience stores, the pursuit of comfort has become a deadly force, sucking us into mediocrity and stagnation. “If only you just tell me you believe, you will be chosen and go to heaven.” I was told by an evangelist. How tempting! “You can work from home for only a few hours a day!” I was told by a job recruiter. How easy! These people seem to want life delivered to their door. And what is wrong with that? Everything.



“We must hold to what is difficult,” writes Rainer Maria Rilke. And if he could see how easy life has become for most Westerners in the century since he has made that remark, he would repeat it with more force and more passion. “Grab difficulty by the throat and strangle it!” Henry David Thoreau saw the perils of comfort a century before Rilke in the idle habits of his fellow Concordians. He built his own cabin in the woods as an antidote. What world would he see now, with leisure a way of life? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness does not mean giving up inconvenience whenever possible.

Why? Why is difficulty so necessary? Why can’t we laze in the pillowed rowboat of modern life, gorging on sumptuous delicacies unknown to the most powerful of ancient kings, and cuddling up to our weakness? What is wrong with some well-earned comfort? Nothing, if it is earned through struggle and effort. And of course there are still places where the struggle for survival is very real. I do not begrudge those who struggle for existence the comfort that awaits at the end. But it is that struggle that makes us humans instead of slugs. Evolution occurs when a species is challenged by its environment. If we had not confronted cold weather or had to preserve food, we would have never learned how to build a fire. From a spiritual point of view, our burdens make us better people. The Buddha had to give up his comfortable palace life to find greater happiness and peace. He had to confront difficulty to find a way to surpass it. Our minds and bodies seek challenges and we must provide them, or become corrupted and weak.



There is often a subtle, unconscious rebellion against this creed of convenience. Mountain climbers usually cannot tell you in words why they climb. Weekend warriors helplessly defend their adventures against the laziness of the herd. But their bodies know, aching for time off the couch. And our bodies are not the only things threatened by laziness. Lazy thoughts, like “things must happen for a reason,” gratify many, but some remain unsatisfied. Some start their own new-age religions and fantastical philosophies, to challenge lazy ones that seem to swallow the entire culture whole. When asked why they went to such elaborate lengths to rebel against the norm, they often cannot give a satisfactory answer, unconscious of their need, and the smug, comfortable folks smile and shake their heads.

The need for difficulty is so hard-wired into our systems that when life presents no problems, we create our own, small and silly ones. Spoiled rich children moan about the horrors of bad skin and classwork. Intelligent people with nowhere to focus their talent spend their time complaining about the quality of films or music. Strong people with nothing to build waste their time destroying. And idle people with nothing to fear create fears. But these so-called difficulties are merely convenient distractions from the true work of development. What Thoreau called “the luxury that enervates and destroys nations” is destroying ours, as the mass of humanity continues to take the easy jobs, the easy beliefs, the easy values, the easy life. Comfortable people make wonderful slaves.

Aside from stopping our personal and cultural growth, by taking the path of comfort we doom ourselves to provisional happiness. As the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche emphatically states: “If you refuse to let your own suffering lie upon you even for an hour and if you constantly try to prevent and forestall all possible distress way ahead of time; if you experience suffering and displeasure as evil, hateful, worthy of annihilation, and as a defect of existence, then it is clear that [you harbor in your heart]… the religion of comfortableness. How little you know of human happiness, you comfortable…people, for happiness and unhappiness are sisters and even twins that either grow up together or, as in you case, remain small together.” I see friends finding their uppermost happiness in the incidental pleasures of watching television, finding the best alcoholic beverage, or repeating clichéd truisms. These happinesses are fine in their own way, but as the maximum practice of joy are small and unworthy of my friends, of any of us. And I think that deep down, those angry people who ask me what is wrong with comfort are afraid that somehow I have found a greater happiness that they don’t understand.



I am certainly as guilty as anyone of taking advantage of convenience. But I try to earn the greater happiness, what Aristotle called eudaimonia, again and again attempting to throw off the comfort I have been born into. I plan to die standing up, with nothing left unchallenged, the happiest man alive. And you? Will your happinesses remain small and comfortable, full of idle pleasures and received knowledge? Beware the perils of comfort, my friends, and earn the life you deserve.


First published at Hackwriters.

New Haven Review

I have a book review published in the New Haven Review. They will be publishing several of my "lost classics" review over 2010.

I have about 20 or 30 reviews published on the web - all positive. I love books and sharing that love with others brings me great joy. I've got one coming out in the Phi Kappa Phi FORUM this summer, as well.

The Graves of the Roosevelts

On a quiet Sunday in March, I stood silently at the graves of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, not sure if I should give some sort of benediction, or say a prayer, or read a poem. The body of Franklin had been brought by train from Georgia here to Hyde Park, and along the way literally hundreds of thousands of Americans stood vigil, saluting the most popular president since George Washington. Idealists who triumph without violent martyrdom are few and far between, and Franklin was a rare example. With the tireless help of Eleanor, he changed the world, lending hope to the needy, providing light for the depressed. America could have fallen in the decades they ruled us, but they showed that we had nothing to fear.



My girlfriend and I had just finished a tour of their surprisingly modest mansion, nestled in the Hudson Valley. We had talked about how the values they championed seemed to be fading from the land, how a word like “social,” which they had given such value and ethos, was now a curse. People seemed to have forgotten the joy of hard work rewarded with bread. They had certainly forgotten the true meaning of public service – to help the public, not the corporations, not their friends, not the interests of the powerful few. America seemed to teeter upon the lip of a selfish cliff.

It is important not to elevate our leaders to god-like status and President Roosevelt himself had all the flaws of any human being. But maybe he just tried harder. Hitting him at age 39, polio gave him a lesson in the human struggles of others, and indeed is a struggle that the privileged among us cannot imagine. At first he fought it with daily therapy, but he gave it up to run for public office, insuring his own crippling. Later, he worked himself to death as president through our darkest hours, sacrificing his health for the health of his country. But in the meantime he was elected to four terms, and served three. He restored optimism to a country gripped by despair. He led us through the world-wide struggle against fascism, against economic depression, against the failures of prohibition, the horrors of the dust bowls, the aftereffects of the crash of 1929, against all the short-term thinking that drags our country down. How did he do all this? Through what he called “bold, persistent experimentation.” “Above all, try something,” he told us. This is the heart of so-called liberalism: the willingness to try, rather than to build a wall.

Eleanor became a tireless advocate for labor, for civil rights, for fair housing. She asked Franklin and the American people how we could fight racism abroad while allowing it to prosper at home. She pushed through women’s rights to work in jobs formerly forbidden to them. Together, they were a family who fought for the rights of the poor, the oppressed, the immigrants, the farmers, the factory workers. It is not too much to say that they helped create a paradigm shift in the minds of those underprivileged groups, who at last felt they had avatars at the highest level of society. The four universal freedoms still talked about today were Roosevelt’s mantra: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. Human rights is a word the Roosevelts used, a word that finally meant something. Other words came to my mind when looking at the graves of these pioneers, words like “united nations” and “social responsibility.” Words like hope and victory and love.



These noble thoughts filled me as I walked from their grave site across the afternoon lawns, making me believe in a better world, where government works for the people, where leaders have our interests at heart, and where we all work together toward common goals. But a block away, a bewildered middle-class couple was denied a loan, a peaceful protestor was arrested for vagrancy, and the corporate supermarket charged outrageous prices for produce fed on the sweat of the poor.


First published on Hackwriters.

Interviewed by "The Port"

A few months ago I was interviewed by the Bridgeport web magazine, "The Port." Here's the transcript of the interview for all those who missed it!

Why do you prefer writing as your artistic medium? What makes the art of writing stand out to you amongst other forms of artistic expression?

I prefer writing because it is a single act of communication, between myself and the reader. Unlike architecture or film, which have their own merits, I prefer writing because I can control it. Perhaps that’s selfish of me!

You’re a professor. As a writer and educator, how do you incorporate your passion into your career? What would be some advice you would give aspiring writers?

Both writing and teaching involve connecting with other people. So it’s not hard to inject my passion for connection into both areas of my life.

My advice to aspiring writers is to persist, adapt, and practice. So many of my friends and students who wanted to become writers never did it, but not because of the quality of their work. They simply did not persist in either writing or revising, could not or would not adapt to the business of writing, and did not continue to practice.

What do you find inspiring about a city like Bridgeport? What changes have you seen and what would you like to see more of?

I find inspiration in the stories of Bridgeport’s people. They have been through a lot, but continue to create their own successes and band together to build a better community. I hope to see even more of that spirit!

You and a fellow professor have submitted pieces, both on the subject of the ocean and Long Island Sound. The ocean is a familiar muse in all forms of artwork. What is it about the ocean that you find so stirring?

The ocean is both eternal and ever-changing. However, I probably write about it because I see it every day!

Daylights savings time recently occurred and the days are getting shorter. Are you a morning or evening person? Do you prefer winter or spring? When and where do you find your inspiration?

The autumn is the most inspiring time of year for me. There’s nothing better than hiking through a yellow forest when the leaves are falling. But I get my best ideas right before I fall asleep, so I’m always sure to keep a pen and paper ready on the nightstand.