Gratitude?
When I say that I am thankful it does not usually permeate into more than a brief feeling. It is a transitory act. A thing that I intone and think that for the moment I am very thankful for “x” and then life moves on in its ever-constant flow and rush. This is a real problem. It has been made readily apparent to me that the act of living in a state of gratitude for the manifold wonders and blessings that constitute my overly generous life would only serve to make me a happier person, and, in the act of living in gratitude, make those around me happier as well.
When I say that I am thankful it does not usually permeate into more than a brief feeling. It is a transitory act. A thing that I intone and think that for the moment I am very thankful for “x” and then life moves on in its ever-constant flow and rush. This is a real problem. It has been made readily apparent to me that the act of living in a state of gratitude for the manifold wonders and blessings that constitute my overly generous life would only serve to make me a happier person, and, in the act of living in gratitude, make those around me happier as well.
It has no downside.
The process of living in a constant
state of gratitude is more than my simple bourgeois mind can handle. My mind
recoils from this impossibly difficult task and resolves to remember to be
appreciative of my overflowing basket of happiness’s on thanksgiving and then
gets on with the living of a neo-modern American life. I see that this
path is a gravely mistaken one, yet to be in gratitude is something abstract and
only written and not yet lived. To “be” in a state of gratefulness from moment
to moment is something that seems impossible.
A good Buddhist would be able to think
these thoughts and make them so but alas I am no practicing Buddhist or at the
very least not a good or even a shitty half assed mediocre one at that. I do
however recognize all the things a person in my socio-economic realm should and
must be grateful for, and these things do include residing well within the
plush rich confines of the upper middle class American lazy happiness zone.
My
health, my family, my freedom... these things are seemingly inalienable,
and have been given to me by some bizarre universal jackpot of which I had no
part in obtaining through effort. Yet I am forever in debt to the spinning wheel
that provided me with these various overly generous rewards. Then why is the
idea of living in a state of gratitude such a paralyzing thing? How does it
become such a staggeringly difficult wall to surmount?
To believe that all these magically
derived gifts are not to be appreciated daily is the height of hubris. Yet here
I am without the simple ability to bring it into the world. I have gratitude for my station in life and yet I feel a deep need; an itch
of constant need that I have yet to scratch with my appreciativeness. Perhaps this is
why I have put this particular writing off for so long.
Being very busy is a
good excuse for not delving into my lack of appreciation surrounding my
wonderful life. I do though have my fair share of wonder. More than that I have
spellbinding amazement at the universe and its many intersecting winding paths
that snake through space-time. Daily I can find moments of strategic plan
shattering awe at my bizarre route to this here and now at which I find myself
very dazed and certainly confused.
Yet true gratitude is ever elusive,
bound as I am in my neo-modernist nihilism. Trapped again by the much loved
post-everything neo-modernism and divided from truly being in the world
empirically grateful and happy. To actualize is to risk and therein lies the
rub. Losing through commitment. Haven’t we been here before? I believe so. The
only way out is through. What a pickle.
Once you have the post-post-modern
reality you get into the risk of the neo-modernist crucially limited ability to
commit to anything. Can one do such a thing without a wink and a giggle? Do
things possess actuality? Can I believe in the ability of gratitude granting me
release from wanting things to be better or different than they are? Does it matter?
Things are as they should be and the universe is blind and indifferent to my
needs. As a total prick I once knew used to say frequently “It is what it is.”
We all couldn’t stand that dude.