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This story has a powerful tone. It shows a very humble side of Galeano, in the fact that he wants just one person to hear, and if that person enjoys it, he is happy. This is an essay directed to Western society. He is telling artists of all kinds that they should not care so much about ratings and sales (especially money), but focus more on true fans. I compare the message in this essay to rock bands. I like to think about good bands who turn away from true fans that have followed them before they made it famous for a pop career. These artists aren't satisfied with the average life of a not so famous rock star, so they try and sell their look to MTV and teeny magazines and endorse products that don't necessarily pertain to their realm of knowledge. Take a classic example of a group such as Rage Against The Machine. Rage, as they are called by their fans, are an anti-establishment rock group that protests against the corporate world, globalization, and the exploitation of poverty-stricken ethnic groups. But the irony is that Rage produces its albums for a global corporation, sells its music videos to MTV, another global corporation, and lives in far better conditions than those they purport to defend.
This story goes beyond just art. It goes for most of life in general. Eduardo is saying that when he starts to have trouble in his writing, he thinks of people that try their hardest in what they do. In that way, he is saying that if you are having trouble in anything that you are doing, think of people who try their hardest for very little payoff. I like to compare this to marathon runners. Running 26.2 miles isn't exactly fun, and many of the people who do it don't get much of a benefit for what they put in other than being in great shape. They run sometimes up to 100 miles a week, many times while trying to keep a job, just to get 457th out of 9,231 people. But the benefit that they get goes beyond some place; it's the fact that they went beyond what they thought they could do.
Galeano said that his applause shook the empty hall. I think that the reward is an important part of dignified hard work. Galeano rewarded the actors with loud applause, which I think is a better feeling than giving the actors money or material goods. The reward should be more than just money or material goods, a reward should remind you of the hard work you put into accomplishing your goal. The reward might include cash, and lets say that you are aspiring to graduate from college and start your career off in a good firm, you are trying to prepare yourself with the tools and resources to make a good living. But when you look around at all your goods, it should remind you of how hard you worked to get there.
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