Too Grateful For My Shirt

July 7

Let’s see… Gratitude, from Latin gratus, meaning “pleasing” or “thankful”, close to Latin gratia, grace.

Gratuitous, from the same gratus, originally meaning “given without return benefit or compensation,” but later perverted by our mistrust to mean “unwarranted,” because there is no such thing as a free lunch. Are we so ungrateful?

Gratuity, once given gratuitously, now demanded and expected. Gratuity, having spread beyond all reasonable prevalence, has become gratuitous anew.

I am persona non grata, the ingrate.

July 8

What am I supposed to write here, that I’m grateful for my full belly? Gee, that TV dinner sure was better than starving! (They don’t call them “TV dinners” anymore, do they? It’s uncouth to eat in front of the TV now, so we sit at the table like civilized folks and play with our phones instead. Here’s an idea, gratis: build a little stand for your phone into the frozen dinner tray. Ha!)

July 9

I’m

too grateful for my shirt,

too grateful for my shirt,

so grateful it hurts.

July 14

Well, I have failed the assignment, but I am grateful that Dr. Robbins has given me the opportunity for remediation. Henceforth, this will be a proper Gratitude Journal, devoid of the preceding nonsense.

I remember when Pat told me, “It’s impossible to have a serious conversation with you.” (I took it as a compliment.) I suppose to be grateful for something, you must take it seriously. But in taking nothing seriously, one must take the unserious seriously, because to be solely unserious is a serious commitment. Therefore, I can mark this first serious entry in my Gratitude Journal, by stating that I am grateful for the unserious.

Having established that, I am accepting, for the time being and not without reservations, Dr. Robbins’ premise that gratitude increases happiness. I told him I am not striving for happiness, which is fleeting, I am seeking contentment. He finished his glass of wine, then patted me on the head and said, “Baby steps. Gratitude is sufficient for happiness, and necessary but not sufficient for contentment.”

Fine, baby steps. Here goes:

I am grateful for my full belly. (And my shirt.)

July 15

There I was doing a great job feeling grateful for my spinach, my fried eggs, my locally baked bread, my Avocado from Mexico^TM (and trying to forget that article about the cartels’ involvement in the avocado industry), and it occurred to me that I can only be grateful for my full belly because there are hungry people, and that sent me on a downward spiral that put this entire project in peril.

I am only grateful for the things I have because there are those without, that much seems certain. So, can there be gratitude without pain and suffering? Must gratitude come with guilt? Gratitude is the feeling of a desire met, and the Buddha said something about desires = bad. Am I Buddhist now?

Well, if I feel guilty about my gratitude then let’s eliminate the guilt and keep the gratitude. I will feed the hungry, starting tomorrow.

July 16

Today I volunteered at the nearby soup kitchen. My job was to take a van to a particular parking lot where homeless people knew to come and hand out sandwiches to them. The instructions were simple: make sure everyone gets at least one sandwich, and then hand out the rest of the sandwiches to anyone that wants another until there are none left.

Things went orderly enough at first. They knew the routine better than me, after all. I knew better than to expect smiles and fawning, but I wasn’t prepared for the disgruntlement. Men came to me asking for two sandwiches off the bat before I’d given one to everyone, claiming that one sandwich wasn’t enough to satiate them, which is absolutely true. Although I explained the one rule, which they undoubtedly already knew, and surmised that there would be enough sandwiches left over for them to get seconds, they would not relent, and so I did, and prayed that there would indeed be enough sandwiches in the end. In retrospect, I cannot blame the food insecure for being insecure about their food. At the time, however, I felt overwhelmed and irritated, and so when the guy in the blue parka spat out a hunk of white bread and bologna, and expressed his displeasure with it, I made a comment about gratitude of which I am so ashamed that I cannot bear to repeat it.

This was his response to me, which I am paraphrasing:

“Listen, you little privileged PMC prick. One of two things is true: either there is enough food to fill every person’s belly, and I am being deprived of a full belly by men, men who have created an artificial scarcity of food; or scarcity of food is real and inevitable, which means it can only ever be that some have full bellies while others go hungry.

“If it is the latter then call me ungrateful to a god who would create a world of plenty for some and paucity for others and put me in it.

“But if the scarcity is artificial, and I think we all know it is,” lots of mm-hmms heard here, “am I expected to be grateful when The Man throws me a crumb from the daily bread he deprives me?”

Several nuh-uhs and one “Aw hell no.”

“The crumb isn’t grace, it is fuel - just enough fuel to keep an ember lit, an ember of righteous indignation. But get a few embers together, you see, and the fire rekindles, and then you’ll be sorry that you didn’t piss on the fire after you thought you stomped it out!

“I should be grateful? Nah, gratitude is for the greedy.”

Except he didn’t say any of that; he punched me in the mouth, and it was richly deserved! What I wrote here was the sense he knocked into me, for which I am grateful.

July 17

I relayed the preceding day’s events through my sore jaw to Dr. Robbins who declared it a resounding success. I submitted that whatever lesson I’m to have learned could have done without the left hook, to which he rebutted that I in particular required a more pugilistic delivery than most.

So, gratitude is gratuitous, and in the bad way. No, that’s an overstatement. Gratitude is…? I’m not sure what I’ve learned here, as I’m still a bit woozy.

I am grateful for my painkillers.

July 18

I’m still trying to wrap my head in a bandage, but also around whatever Dr. Robbins is trying to get me to understand about gratitude. I must say, the Gratitude Journal idea seems quite hokey coming from him. Dr. Robbins’ techniques tend to be far less ordinary, and often borderline illegal. This one sounded more like advice you’d get from Oprah’s magazine.

I am grateful for… TBD.

July 21

Today I decided to find gratitude in something of which no one is deprived and settled on the sunrise. Everyone has access to the sunrise. Well, not so much from my ground-floor apartment, which despite being legally required to have windows is not legally required to have a view of anything but the wall of another building. So, I had to drive somewhere to see the sunrise, adding to the smog that diminishes the sunrise, all the while reminding myself to be grateful that I can afford my car payments and grateful for the people who fought and died in this country’s labor struggle so that I could have a weekend to get out and see the sunrise!

On my drive to the overlook, a broken-down bus blocked one lane and created a traffic jam so that by the time I got on the highway driving east, the sun, risen by this point, was directly in my eyes, nearly blinding me. It was moments later that I was grateful for the airbag that saved my life.

July 29

Now that my injuries have healed, I have the proper “headspace” to be grateful. It’s time to be grateful. Just be grateful. Be grateful and then you’ll be happy. This moment is a gift. I think I saw that on a throw pillow once. Be grateful for the moment starting… now. Nope, still ungrateful. Dr. Robbins said that gratitude is sufficient for happiness, but didn’t tell me how to be grateful, that son of a bitch.

July 30

Today I watched a young boy beg his mother to stay at the playground a while longer and when she refused, she added that he should be grateful that he got to go at all. And after this it dawned on me that we are most often told to be grateful specifically when we are being deprived of what we want, and usually by the very person that is withholding it from us.

Furthermore, it seems to me that this emphasis on gratitude is just another coping mechanism brought to you by Big Mental Health. “Your anxiety and depression are bullshit, you ungrateful bastard. There are starving children in...,” is what they’re telling you when they suggest you start a Gratitude Journal.

I have known Dr. Robbins to be eccentric, but not haughty, and certainly not in league with Big Mental Health. He told me that gratitude is necessary for contentment, but I’m only content being a malcontent, and he knew that. The Gratitude Journal was a joke, and I fell for it. I have learned nothing.

I am grateful for Dr. Robbins.

August 22

I am grateful for the bolt cutters. I am grateful for the kerosene and the match.