A day with Robert Fulghum

"A Finite View 
of Infinite Concerns"

© 2003 by Michael Finley

Robert Fulghum told many stories during his December 2 presentation in Minneapolis. One of the most affecting was about Ludwig van Beethoven. He used Beethoven as an example of a kind of cheerleader for the human race.

Beethoven had problems. In his fifties, familyless and abandoned by his friends, in poor health, and suffering the excruciating humiliation of being a deaf musician, Beethoven fought back, creating his Ninth Symphony, arguably the most stirring piece of music ever written. Being deaf, he never heard a note of it himself.  

Against this epic symphony Fulghum described a simpler song -- "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." It contains the same lesson of defeat and resurrection as the Choral Symphony. A small spider, attempting to crawl up a narrow, dangerous passageway, is thwarted and nearly drowned. Does the spider despair? No, it climbs up the waterspout again — and this time succeeds. Or if it fails, the song makes no mention of it.  

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Robert Fulghum