When I think of things to be grateful for, I think of immediate family—my amazing wife and kids and friends—engaging in life in the fullest. These elements are as essential to me as life itself. But sometimes we get distracted. The ancient Chinese curse is upon us, “May you live in interesting times.” These are interesting times.
California has again been plagued with drought-induced wildfires this year. Climate change and its unpredictable alteration of wind currents make the fires calamitous— thousands of people have lost their homes and potentially hundreds have lost their lives, maybe as many as a thousand. This has been a year of chasing President of the United States’ Donald J. Trump’s shiny new objects of deceit and glittering falsifications. This is the year that you can’t get away from the news because it is an ongoing onslaught of embarrassing events: the dismantling of the EPA and democratic institutions like the Justice Department, the firing of James Comey, the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, the election of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the appointment of Matt Whitaker, the dismantling of agreements and fundamental understandings of civilized values. What are “civilized values”? They begin with the expectation that people tell the truth (or at least feel guilty about lying), because there is a general goodwill agreement between human beings that is the basis of all our dealings with each other. There is a way to come together, to find common ground and to not kill each other over stupid misunderstandings. To paraphrase a Star Trek exchange, Spock muses that the human race is so violent, predatory, and murderous, that he can’t understand how the species survives. To which Kirk replies, “One day, we just decided—today I will not kill anyone. We take it one day at a time.”
What is there to be grateful for? Poetry, beautiful paintings, music, morning sunshine, rain, a basic willingness to let go and participate in what it means to be alive. Take a shower, let the water flow over your face and down your body, take a moment to appreciate and participate in the amazing feelings and immediacy that are available to you in this simple act. And then there is the fact that, in America, we have running water, we have sewer systems, we have electricity in our beautiful homes, we have the ability to take a meal together that we call Thanksgiving. And we have friends and family gathering together, sharing our bounty and our love.
