written 20 November 2022
published 27 November 2022
Thanksgiving is the national holiday when we focus on gratitude in our lives. Despite being overshadowed by the commercial frenzy of "Black Friday", and multiple football games, it is still about gratitude. However, this essential perspective need not be limited to just one day, but can shape life every day, if we so choose. When you begin to look, there are many places for gratitude.
I start the day being grateful to be alive. I give thanks that I breath freely, and am grateful to all the beings that produce oxygen. Despite losing clarity with age, my eyes still see, and are correctable with glasses. My body is still able to stand and walk. All my joints work, are limber, and relatively free from pain. My bowels work, my digestion functioning without any conscious input from me, and I have adequate indoor plumbing. At every season of the year, I have suitable clothing. I live in a comfortable house, which is warm these days, and has room for all the things I think I "need".
After decades of false starts, I am grateful I have finally cultivated a solid meditation practice, which helps keep me centered internally, and relatively stable in my encounters with society. When I check in at any given moment, I am usually at peace.
I have functional indoor refrigeration, and can afford adequate nutritious food. As I sit down to eat, I give thanks to all the beings who sacrificed their lives that I may be nourished. I give thanks and bless all the water used to grow and process the food. I give thanks to all the people involved in bringing the food to my table.
I am grateful to live in Ukiah, where competent people make sure that I have adequate clean water, functional sewage service, and reliable electricity, despite working with limited budget and staff. As a City, we have adequate groundwater reserves, despite the regional drought. Living in a small town, I am grateful to be surrounded by the beauty of nature wherever I look, yet can have a pizza delivered. I am grateful for the lack of traffic congestion, and the ability to meet people I know when out in public.
I give thanks for living in California, where I was able to receive a subsidized college education that allowed me a creative and productive work life. While that is mostly an artifact of the past, I am still grateful to live in a state that recognizes human rights and is on the cutting edge of addressing the climate challenge.
I am grateful for the opportunities for creative activities, with a wonderful shop that supports anything I am inspired to make, and a local paper allowing me to express myself every week.
I give thanks to my parents, and all the generations before them, who survived long enough for me to be born and raised to adulthood. I thank my mother for being an articulate, life-long reader, who instilled those practices in me. I thank my sister for loving me despite my manifest limitations. I thank my wife for still being in my life after 27 years. I am grateful that she is smart, articulate, funny, a wonderful artist, and brings novelty into my life.
I am grateful to be alive at this time on the planet. We are now surrounded by an array of amazing technology, giving access to information from around the world and the capacity to communicate as broadly. While this is unevenly distributed, and can be terribly abused, it also allows unprecedented opportunities.
I am grateful to be alive as the human species is being confronted with coming together as a global family, which is the only real solution to the climate crisis. I am grateful to be able to participate in this great transformation, and share the experience with others of like mind.
This example is just a partial list. I don't ignore the serious problems all around, or that everything we used to take for granted is at risk to sudden change. But by starting my day with gratitude for the moment, I build up an internal awareness credit of the good parts of life, which allows me to engage with the hard parts without becoming depressed or sinking into chronic despair.
I wish for everyone a practice of gratitude.
