Gratitude.

What is that, anyway? We have all these moments where we realize that we’re taking this and this for granted, and hey, I never really appreciated that either, so I’m going to talk about how much this makes a difference in my life, and I really can’t live without it. We have these events that makes us cherish our lives and all that we have; little things that make an impact on us to make us say, “Damn, at any moment now, I could drop dead and everything I have going for me would be gone.” Well, yeah, but—you’re dead, what do you care?

We get all these…turning points in our lives that make us think, “Hey, I need to take a moment to reflect on my life, and take the time to realize how great I really have it.” People die and you say, “Dude, I could die, too. Maybe I should live life to the fullest.” You get little things taken away from you—running water, the light bulb, a heater—and you take a brief amount of time to “truly value” what your world is. You see people everywhere on the media—people killing, people dying, children hurt and you hear them crying, can you practice what you preach? Would you turn the other cheek?—and you think, Oh God, please don’t ever let that happen to me. The two towers fall; you run home to your family and tell them you love them. Bombs fly, plates shift, hurricanes not only destroy but utterly annihilate entire cities and wipe out the homes of millions of people. Now, a home is not only a shelter. A home is so much more—I am human; I collect junk. I store things, I keep things, I save Things. I have yearbooks, computers, books, photos, clothes, a bed; the list goes on. And, get this—I am only one person. Thousands of families are swept away by the uncontrollable consequences of a natural disaster. Thousands of single persons with their own books, their own photos, their own clothes, keepsake memorabilia—for each and every person, they lose something. And not just anything, but everything. Why? Because we are human; we are not animals that exist only for the sake of survival and reproduction, but for history, records, and memories. We strive to preserve.

And so we see these other people, oh no, not us, but other people, on the news, in the papers, on the radio—and we say, “Hey, that’s horrible. I’m grateful for…” we thus proceed to list all the things that we appreciate. I know I have.

Yep. And then what? Donate some money? Write a check, give up some canned food, discard your old clothes. It helps, of course it helps; anything helps. I’m not trying to minimize the effect of anything that the average citizen does to help his or her community, or another community far, far away.

So, what is it? The government? Yes, we can always blame them. Or perhaps global warming leads to the higher rate of natural disasters? Maybe we could blame the government again, for not being more effective about making us help our earth?

I don’t know what my point is, and I seem to have traveled quite a ways from my original topic of discussion: Gratitude. Honestly, I don’t remember what I had wanted to conclude. Perhaps I shall continue this another day.