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Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds

I’m old now and I’m happy I made it this far, but as well as being happy about it, I am also grateful… But grateful to whom, and for what? Gratitude is nothing new for me as I inch along my many years, and yet lately I have begun to wonder about it more seriously. If I were religiously inclined, or even agnostic about a higher power, I suppose I might be able to focus my gratitude more appropriately, but alas I lack the will to resort to imaginative recipients.

And yes, I can understand allowing my appreciation to centre on animate things possessing sufficient agency to enable them to decide to help me, but to be grateful to the fridge for continuing to chill my fixings for a salad, the stove for frying my eggs, or for that matter, the particular step on my way downstairs for not tripping me on my latest journey to the washing machine…? To whom (or what) I ask, should I be grateful? Does gratitude not imply a consciousness able to accept it? Appreciate it? Otherwise, am I not merely whispering to the night?

Perhaps I am granted a certain latitude for my age, but most of my similarly aged friends seem to question the wisdom -the need– to wonder about such things.

“Gratitude is the feeling you get when you’re pleased something actually worked the way you hoped it would; in the dark, it’s only natural to feel gratitude for finding a light switch, eh?”

Tony fancies himself a wise elder, and an aging, albeit emeritus, professor of Philosophy; he never misses an opportunity to remind me of that whenever he decides to confront me. I’ve known him since our university days, and we even lived in the same lodgings for a while. At any rate since our retirements, we frequently go for walks along the Ambleside seawall and recently he launched into a tirade about what he considered my willful disregard of the blessings I have enjoyed.

“I don’t understand you, G. You should be grateful that you’ve had a marvelous career in medicine, grateful that you’re not consigned by poverty to begging on the street, and grateful that you’re not accompanying me on our walks in a wheelchair…”

I’ve noticed that Tony likes to finish a particularly complex set of ideas with an almost palpable ellipsis; it’s as if he feels he has done his job of providing an adequate number of examples of his opinion without having to overburden me with an endless list to convince me.

“But to whom should I be grateful, Tony?” -my usual reply, I’m afraid. “We’ve had this conversation innumerable times, and you’ve yet to explain the feeling to my satisfaction. I do feel grateful, but I’m not sure where to direct it…” Yes I ellipt things too, I suppose.

He performed his usual shrug and merely pointed at the vessels temporarily anchored in the Burrard Inlet awaiting a space to unload in the port. The sun was glinting off the water and a wind was stirring some waves offshore and ruffling my hair as he spoke. “Aren’t you grateful for this?” he asked in a hushed voice as if we were in a sacred space somewhere.

I returned the shrug as I often do. “Tony, I tell you every time that yes, I am grateful about things like this… But to whom do I owe the gratitude?”

He issued his usual sigh, and mounted a disappointed expression on his face as if he were still attempting to convince a slow pupil in a seminar at the university. “Gratitude is merely another name for recognizing the positive aspects of the experience; as I keep telling you, the source does not have to be animate; it’s you who are the recipient of the feeling; you who translate the feeling.” He smiled and pointed to a dog running after a ball its owner had thrown into a tree-strewn field lining the inlet. The dog was obviously enjoying the exercise, as was the owner; they were both immersed in the throw-chase-retrieve game; both no doubt grateful for each other’s company. Grateful, perhaps, that such simple things could provide so much pleasure.

“Let me explain gratitude in a different way G. Am I correct in assuming you enjoy our conversations?”

I nodded with a smile. “Of course I do, Tony. I enjoy your company and respect your opinions…”

“For which you feel a certain degree of gratitude…?”

I realized I had to be careful; he was leading me. “Yes, I enjoy different perspectives…”

“But, just because you respect my opinions and enjoy my perspectives, does not mean that you are convinced by them, correct?”

I nodded and narrowed my eyes a little. “Tell me you’re not going to try a modus ponens on me Tony.”

He chuckled at that as if he thought I’d figured out his method of convincing me.  He knew I’d studied a bit of Philosophy before I went into Medicine.

“P implies Q. P is true, therefore Q is also true. It’s an ampliative argument that relies on new information not found in the premises…” I was pretty proud of that defence, although I wasn’t really sure if I’d got it right.

“Whoa, G! I wouldn’t pull that on you.” He pretended to wink. “No, that’s Introduction to Logic 101. I’m merely allowing you to direct your gratitude to a wider base than you thought permissible. You used to have pets I remember…” He paused for me to nod my head in agreement. “And I venture to assume you were grateful for their existence and how they affected you when they were alive?” Another pause; another nod.

“And I happen to know you’re grateful that you live next to a forest with trails and creeks and birds singing in the trees in your backyard, correct?” I suspected I had an idea where this was going, but I held my tongue.

“Remember those days so long ago when we’d go down to Wreck Beach across from the university to watch the sun go down and argue about Martin Buber’s ‘I and Thou’; and whether he considered the appreciation of a sunset one of the greatest forms of prayer?”

I smiled at that. “And how I could never find that passage in his works…?”

Tony chuckled at the memory. “We loved to argue didn’t we?” I nodded again, but it was a contented nod this time; memories do that to me. “I suspect we’re both grateful for those times aren’t we…? Grateful for the times we argued, grateful for the special place to go in the evening after classes to watch the sunset…” Tony stared at me inquisitively for a moment. “Grateful if the setting sun reflected off the evening clouds…”

I had to agree it was a magic time.

Tony fixed me with a smile as he sent his eyes to perch for a moment on my cheek. “You see, my friend, gratitude is tied to the agency of the recipient -the sunset is unable to care whether or not you enjoyed its performance- gratitude is actually more about what you get out of it than the person, or thing, for which you are grateful…”

I am reminded about something Buber once wrote: ‘Everyone has in him something precious that is in no one else.’ I suspect he would also agree that he meant not only ‘everyone’ but also ‘every thing’. I’ll bet Tony and I would still enjoy ourselves arguing over that…

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