Gratitude vs. Dissatisfaction
I was going to write about my weekend, but then I read TB’s comments, and I thought I’d respond.
First of all — as often happens in journalism — my quote in the AP article wasn’t placed in its proper context. My “attempt to bring some rationality to a completely irrational series of events” was actually in reference to September 11, not a statement about my blog in general. During the week following the attacks, I wrote incessantly about what I was thinking and feeling. I also provided a few links, as well as excerpts of e-mails and newspaper articles. This was my way of reminding myself — or perhaps of convincing myself — that I was still a sane human being. Unfortunately, I was quoted out of context.
Anyway, TB’s comments really have nothing to do with the quote, but they do touch on some things I’ve thought about before.
What’s the proper balance between gratitude and dissatisfaction? When should you be satisfied with what you have, and when should you strive for something better?
I don’t know. Philosophers have debated this question for years, no doubt.
Certainly, gratitude is necessary in order to survive and to gain some perspective on life. After all, I could be an Afghan refugee fleeing the Taliban. I could be starving or dying of AIDS in Africa. I could be homeless on the streets of Manhattan. I could be paralyzed like Christopher Reeve. Gratitude can make me feel better about things. After all, I have enough food to eat. I have heat in winter. I have a family. I even have a laptop computer.
Yes, gratitude is necessary. I do complain a lot here, but it’s good to remember to be grateful. Thanks, TB, for reminding me that.
And yet — I’m not just going to sit on my hands and say, “well, I guess things could be worse.” I’m not going to settle for something. You know why? Because I don’t have to. People used to think they were locked into their roles in life. You know the Elizabethan Chain of Being? Everyone had his or her place in life, and here’s what you were, and here’s what you were supposed to do, and that was that. No complaining. God Save the Queen.
But things are different today. We have more choices today — or, more accurately, certain choices are more socially acceptable today than they used to be. It used to be that you were supposed to pick a company and stay with it for your whole life. Nobody expects people to do that anymore. Thank goodness, because it’s human nature to seek out better things for ourselves.
TB, you want my job? You want my degree? Take ’em. Also take my frustration and my boredom at work. Take my suits and my ties, which the Director wants us to wear, even though it’s 2001. Take the piles of paper that are going to multiply in my office like rabbits. Actually, take my entire windowless office, and its fluorescent lighting, too. Take the monitoring of my Web usage. Take the judges who are going to berate me for not knowing what I’m doing. Take the clients. And take my inherent sense of nonconformity, since it doesn’t seem to jibe with the vast government bureaucracy I’ve joined. Oh, and while you’re at it, don’t forget to repay my law school loans. Thanks so much; it’s very kind of you to take on my burdens for me.
I’m not going to squelch my dreams just because I should be darn grateful that I’m not starving. I’m not going to settle for “not starving.”
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
– Nelson Mandela
You know what? Based on my talents and desires and abilities — based on the particular qualities of the light that shines within me — I think I could do much more good in this world as a therapist than as a lawyer.
My suffering doesn’t help anyone at all.
(That’s something I’m still learning.)
By the way, I strongly dispute the notion that I’m unwilling to find joy or happiness in anything. That’s quite a generalization — one that doesn’t hold up if you read through my blog.
TB, who appointed you my critic? Perhaps you meant well, but your comments were really obnoxious. Do you even understand the purpose of an online journal? It’s a medium of self-expression. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for me. You don’t want to read it, don’t read it. You want to be critical, send me an e-mail, don’t flog me publicly. I’m an adult human being, for goodness’ sake. I’m not your child or your pet.
What you think of me is none of my business.
You touch on something that I’m still in lingo about and that I still don’t have an answer to, maybe you can help me out on this one.
Writing a blog as a form of self expression. Yes, I agree.
But why publicize it instead of keeping a thumbed little writing book locked away in some cabinet? And why a ‘comments’ link?
Does a comments link not hint that you hope that the expression of oneself turns into a dialogue with the readers?
If it turns into a dialogue, are you (or me – I have a log with a comments link)prepared to accept the fact that the expression of oneself turns into interpreted pieces of writing that’s not 100% yours anymore because of the interpretation?
This is something you have not refered to in your reply in the blog entry above.
When you write as personal as you do (something I admire by the way, I don’t have that kind of gift of words) aren’t you opening yourself to comments that can feel like personal attacks? Your reply may suggest you don’t (again: this is the interpretation of me – the reader).
I would like to hear your thoughts on this. You have written so much, I guess you are closer to an answer.
thanks.
I allow comments because I like interacting with my readers. I find it makes the site more lively; it gives my readers an incentive to write me; and it gives people an additional reason to come back here. Also, I love the positive feedback and support I get from other people. Yeah, I like positive feedback. It makes me feel good. It’s human nature to want to feel good. So, yeah, I really enjoy the comments that most of my readers leave.
I trust that the vast majority of my readers know where the boundaries are. And most of them do.
You’re right, though. I write pretty honestly and personally here, and perhaps that encourages some people to write back just as honestly. Also, if I’m going to criticize myself, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised if other people criticize me as well. “Well, he’s doing it to himself. Why can’t I do it to him, too?” I guess I open up Pandora’s Box when I write like this.
But the fallacy of this belief is shown by the fact that most people don’t leave such comments. Presumably that’s because most people respect the fact that I’m an adult human being who doesn’t need to be told what to think or how to live his life.
Some people don’t realize this — some people think it’s their duty to come here and tell me how I should live. You can tell by their tone.
For instance, these comments are fine. They challenge my view, but they are good-natured in tone. The people who wrote those comments know how to disagree with me without being a jerk about it.
But people who feel it’s their constant duty to come here and lecture me in a holier-than-thou tone — those people I don’t need. And if someone does that, I will usually call that person on it.
Sorry if this sounds whiny, but that’s how I feel.
I continue to encourage most comments. So comment away.
I read a lot of journals, online and otherwise. When i say “a lot”, for example, i’ve had this interest from somewhere around 4th grade. Journals and correspondence make-up well over half of my entertainment reading. So, a lot, and it makes me An Expert. ;-p
Puritans, and their ideological descendents, regularly kept diaries. It was bad form for a literate individual not to record at least daily events, if not also thoughts. Even then you can smell various writers’ dilemma of whether to express this or that thought, of where the line between the recordable and meta-private exists.
We are quite literally the first generation ever in human history where so many journals have been shared so frequently and so widely. This turning point of communication-history exemplifies just how interconnected we’re becoming as a civilization, as an organism.
It sounds like sci-fi, but most likely within our lifetimes the thoughts & sense-feelings of a human will be readable by another via recording devices. It’s already within our grasp to measurably know, via electronic monitoring of the brain’s e.m. field, whether a human is speaking this or that word, or merely thinking it silently. Or, whether they are aroused, and by what degree. As this technology advances even more complex recordings of thought and experience will happen. A true life-journal, given an expansive enough recording medium is around the corner.
This will happen, probably sooner than most might anticipate.
That industrial man seems so bent on recording and sharing his thoughts in greater and greater depth and complexity, makes sense. (think cave paintings) It increases our sense of belonging. Maybe the goal is a some emotional-feeling borg?
Maybe journals, and just the whole concept of communication, is an attempt to break down the walls of inviduality, trying to rejoin as some singular group of beings. You can’t help but take a step back from it all and ask what’s the ultimate end purpose of our increasingly complex communication.
Near death experiences often talk about how when you encounter someone on the Otherside that each other’s lives, in complete detail, are immediately known to each other. No secrets. Everything known. Kinda like the ultimate face, or being truly naked. No secrets.
Your life is already being recorded it seems, and will be shared ;-) technology or not.
.rob